1951-10-23

Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: I should like to lay on the table of the house copies in English and in French of order in council P.C. 5645, dated October 22, 1951, passed under the provisions of the Defence Production Act and the Emergency Powers Act authorizing the appointment of J. D. Brunke, Esquire, to be director of priorities in the place and stead of Henry J. Sissons, Esquire, who has been appointed co-ordinator of the materials branch of the Department of Defence Production.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to approve the agreement on the status of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, national representatives and international staff, and to provide for carrying out the obligations, duties and rights of Canada thereunder.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Milion F. Gregg (Minister of Labour) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Government Annuities Act to increase the maximum annuity which may be purchased under the act from twelve hundred dollars up to twenty-four hundred dollars and to provide greater flexibility in the provisions of the act relating to the issue, conversion and amendment of annuity contracts and payments thereunder.
94699-19J
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce arising from the serious proportions of the storage and freight car situation on the prairies. In view of the shortage of freight cars, has consideration been given to the request of the wheat pool and certain organizations that there be a reimposition of the quota with a view to protecting the rights of farmers who have been late in harvesting or who have not yet threshed? Would the minister be in a position to advise why there is such a greater shortage of freight cars on the Canadian Pacific than on the Canadian National lines in Saskatchewan?


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: As far as the reimposition of the quota is concerned, as of today the quota has been reimposed in Manitoba and Saskatchewan but it has not been reimposed in Alberta. The purpose of removing the quota was to allow sufficient grain to accumulate in the elevators so that the loading of cars for the lakehead and Vancouver would not be slowed down unduly. That purpose has been achieved as far as Saskatchewan and Manitoba are concerned, and from now on the quota will apply.
The second question has to do with box cars for Saskatchewan and I am not sure that I can answer it. The latest figures I saw indicate that the number of box cars supplied by each of the two railroads for western Canada was more or less in proportion to their mileages in western Canada. It has been necessary to haul wheat from nearby points in order to keep pace with export loadings from the elevators at the head of the lakes and on the west coast. The fact that Saskatchewan involves the longest haul from either coast may be a factor at the moment. I can assure my hon. friend that when navigation closes any inequalities in
292	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry car service that may be occurring at the moment will be compensated for at that time.


Mr. Argue:: Is the transport controller
making box cars available for the movement of oats and barley or are the box cars being used mainly for wheat? I might say that I know that many farmers are finding it impossible to deliver any oats or barley whatever.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I believe preference is being given to the movement of milling wheat but I am also aware that a considerable movement of oats and barley is taking place. The weekly unloads at the lakehead so indicate.


John George Diefenbaker: I should like to ask one more question for the benefit of those areas that have a particularly grave shortage of freight cars. I cannot refer to correspondence or telegrams in asking the question, but for information for these people what course should they follow in order to assure themselves of an equitable distribution of cars?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I suppose the course would be to keep pressure on the board of grain commissioners to make sure that the car order book is lived up to as closely as possible.



WHEAT AND OATS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. J. Smith (Moose Mountain):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In fact I have two questions. The first one has to do with the final payment on last year's wheat. On two occasions I forecast a 20 cent payment.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


John James Smith: I should like the minister to tell us whether that may materialize. The second question is: Is the minister in a position to tell us what we may expect as a final payment on last year's oats?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The hon. member for Moose Mountain was good enough to give me notice of his question. I am not in a position to announce the final payment on wheat. I expect to be able to do so early in the month of November, and I hope the final payments for wheat may be made during the month of November. I can, however, announce the operating results of the 1950-51 western oats pool. This pool was closed on October 6 and in order to finalize the pool, slightly over 3 million bushels of cash oats were transferred to the 1951-52 pool under provision of section 29(a) of the Canadian Wheat Board Act.


Futures contracts covering the oats transferred to the new pool had been sold prior to the transfer date and therefore the transfer involved pricing various grades of oats so transferred in relation to the closing price of the October future on October 6, 1951.
Producers delivered 102,422,598-13 bushels to the 1950-51 oats pool. The net surplus for distribution to producers amounts to $9,639,421.43. Therefore the average final payment on oats delivered to the board in 1950-51 will be 9-411 cents per bushel. On the basic grade, namely, No. 2 Canada western, the final payment will be 9-710 cents per bushel. On No. 1 feed oats the final payment will be 8 [DOT] 599 cents per bushel, while the final payment on No. 2 feed and No. 3 feed oats will be 12-384 cents and 14-758 cents per bushel respectively. In general, final payments per bushel on lower grades of oats are considerably higher than the final payment on the top grades.
Members will recall that effective on January 31 last the initial payment on all grades of oats was increased by 10 cents per bushel and producers delivering oats in the 1950-51 pool up to January 31, 1951, received an adjustment payment of 10 cents per bushel, and on February 1 all initial oats prices were increased by the same amount. The final price realized by producers is 84-710 cents per bushel in the case of No. 2 Canada western oats and 78-599 cents per bushel in the case of No. 1 feed oats. The board will commence the distribution of the final payment on the 1950-51 oats pool on Monday, October 29, within a few days after completion of the distribution of the final barley payment which is now under way.



TRANSPORTATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West):: I
should like to address a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of the unanimous decision given by the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday, is the minister going to make a statement with respect to international and interprovincial highway traffic, and is he going to introduce any measure with regard thereto?


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: The minister has no intention of of making a statement because he has already discussed the royal commission's report which dealt with that question very fully.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I should like to ask the Minister of Transport if he would answer the last part

of my question. I asked if he would bring down at this session any measure in regard to interprovincial and international highway traffic.


Lionel Chevrier: I thought I answered that when I said that in the statement I made at the last session of parliament, with respect to the report of the royal commission on transportation, I indicated that that part of the report dealing with the co-ordination of transportation services would be considered at a later date by the government, and if measures were approved action would be taken. But that part of the report has not yet been considered.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: That is why I asked the question.



OLD AGE SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Ellen L. Fairclough (Hamilton West):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Is the minister aware that applications coming in for old age security payments, and which are supported by notarial copies of records in family bibles and the like, are being refused on the ground that these are not original documents? If so, is this action in accordance with the wishes of his department?


Hon. Paul Marlin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: The minister is aware of that fact. I think my hon. friend will appreciate that there is no question of the integrity of any solicitor involved where there is refusal to accept an affidavit as presented. The difficulty is that the old age security measure which will shortly be introduced will represent the decision of this parliament to spend a great deal of the public money in respect of old age security. The potential amount per individual may be as high as $5,000. That means that the greatest care must be taken in ascertaining that the applicant is entitled to benefit under the act. We are of the opinion, in the light of our administrative experience, that the decision as to the age of a particular applicant, covered by any particular document, must be a decision made by the responsible representatives of the government. Obviously there is a difference in the care and the standards that will be employed, and I think that when we come to discuss the bill I shall be able to demonstrate to my hon. friend the importance of this step. I have had some letters from solicitors regarding the matter, and I might say, as a solicitor myself, that I would be the last to impugn their integrity.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I am afraid that does not answer my question in a way that would indicate what the desire of the department is. If one follows closely what the minister has just said, all these people over a certain age are going to be ruled out.


An hon. Member:: Ask the question.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: They just do not have birth certificates.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I may assure my hon. friend there will be nobody ruled out on that account.


Mr. Macdonnell (Greenwood):: Is the
minister aware that there are going to be plenty of cases-I should think many thousands-where, unless there is a certain amount of common sense added to highly technical rules, there is going to be a great deal of injustice done?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I assure my hon. friend we will exercise the greatest amount of common sense that we possess.


Mr. Graydon:: That has not answered anything.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: If that is the case, then will the department accept the actual family bibles themselves as evidence, and does the minister want his department full of 20-pound bibles?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I certainly will accept a bible. We are receiving thousands of bibles, and not only do we accept them and look at them but we return them expeditiously.
[Later] :


Mr. Croll:: I should like to ask the Minister of National Health and Welfare whether, in accepting these bibles, he accepts the old testament.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Health and Welfare will accept any record which clearly indicates the birth, and the evidence of the birth of the applicant. The old testament, as well as the new, certainly would be in that category.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, October 22, consideration of the motion of Mr. St. Laurent:
That this house approves the continuation of Canada's participation in the efforts being made through the United Nations to establish international peace, and in particular to defeat aggression and restore peace in Korea, and by the North Atlantic treaty nations to deter aggression and promote stability and well-being in the north Atlantic area.
[Stage Direction]
United Nations and NATO
Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, at the conclusion of my remarks last night I had tried to establish three points. The first was that the peace treaty with Japan, excellent as it may be as a document, nevertheless would be of no avail in helping us in the future if nations of the world were to revert to the economic practices we have seen in the past. And, parenthetically, one might regret the recent exhibition of economic nationalism we have seen in the United States.
The second point was that, in so far as giving aid to underprivileged countries was concerned, the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) had stated very clearly what we ought to do. Other members of the cabinet had stated equally explicitly what we ought to do; yet we are not doing it.
The evidence of good intentions before us is puny and meagre, and when the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) says we have got to extend economic aid, we must translate that protestation into facts, much more than we have in the past.
The third point I wished to make was that we could not force our allies in Europe to rearm to the point where their economies would be threatened to an extent where they would fall easy prey to communism. If it is necessary to keep our defences up to the highest pitch, we in North America would have to contribute even more to the general well-being.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) said at one point in his speech, as reported at page 259 of Hansard:
In the kind of situation with which we are faced today, it may be that if we have achieved our defence objectives by, say, the end of 1954, we will have surmounted the most acutely dangerous period; but that in its turn may be followed by the longer term phase of the conflict, the marathon race as opposed to the sprint, and that may last for many, many years.
These words may well be true, and yet they offer cold comfort. For do we have many years in which to look forward? I realize the London Economist said a few weeks ago that when some period of stability settles upon the western world we may expect that our commitments for defence will amount to about 10 per cent of our national income. To have to look forward indefinitely to that condition is indeed cold comfort. And it strikes me also that to look forward to it is merely squatting on the status quo, instead of working out some reasonable alternative. As a matter of fact the only inference I can take from that statement is that it condemns those who desire to improve the conditions of our people-and that includes every member in

the House of Commons-it condemns to frustration those who desire social improvements, complete and utter frustration. We have to think up new ideas. When we have found the solution to war we will have found the solution to poverty, we will have found the solution to communism.
We now have before us an instrument which offers hope. We have the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which we can and do support. But only yesterday the minister used in connection with this organization a certain word-and he used it not once or twice but several times. That was the word "coalition". As both the minister and I are politicians we know of the unfounded charge which has been made against us that we use words to obscure our real intent.
The minister, however, is also trained in diplomacy, and because of that he knows, too, the precise value and function of words. So when he uses the word "coalition" repeatedly I wonder what it means. I sent to the table for the Oxford English Dictionary in order to find the meaning of the word "coalition". This was what I found:
Union-
And this may make the hair of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) stand up. However, it is in the dictionary.
-fusion; (politically) temporary combination for special ends between parties that retain distinctive principles.
If we are to judge from what the minister has said in the past, this political connotation cannot be accepted. I am left therefore wondering whether or not the minister has in mind that ultimately we will form a union out of this organization, no matter how distasteful it may be to the hon. member for Peace River. And, by the way, I read the hon. member's speech, and paid particular attention to the concluding section of it in which he passed strong strictures against several people, one or two of whom I know. When he takes aim at Mr. Toynbee it is unavailing. Then he mentioned Mr. Clarence
K.	Streit, known to some hon. members as a man of sincerity and integrity of purpose, a man who is trained as a competent journalist and who is able to put two and two together and arrive at a reasonable conclusion. On the other hand, the hon. member for Peace River seems to put one and one together and arrive at a conspiracy. He said something about internationalists which I found interesting- for I, myself, am still an unregenerate and impenitent internationalist.
At page 272 of Hansard the hon. member for Peace River deals with the objects and aims of the group known as Illuminati, who

said that kings and nobles should be abolished. These are the views of the Illuminati:
Religion must be abandoned. Family and national life must cease so as to make the human race one happy family.
And then he goes on:
In these words we find the expression of internationalism as it is expounded by various groups throughout the world today.
I am sure the hon. member will understand me when I say that I treat his remarks with a certain amount of hilarity; because there is only one other group I know of which so actively supports national sovereignty and internationalism in the world today, and that group is in the Kremlin. Verily, politics makes queer bedfellows. I can think of nothing more intriguing than a picture of Mr. Stalin and the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) snuggled under the same blanket.
Now, to revert to the Atlantic community, of which the minister spoke yesterday. He said it would take many decades to develop this community. That may be true, and yet it is tinged in my mind with a certain element of defeatism. It has taken decades to make Canada a nation, and we are not yet finished. Yet today we are a reality in the world, and a nation to be reckoned with. What would have happened if the fathers of confederation had taken this view, and said that we must go slowly for it is going to take us long to arrive as a nation. We might still be in a state of disunity and frustration. We have to start today to make the Atlantic community a reality. As I said earlier, we may have to start through the Atlantic treaty organization. That organization has its problems, and they have to be solved.
There is the problem of how many troops are going to be raised; how they are going to be paid; and how for instance we are going to try to equalize the wages of the French soldier with those of the Canadian soldier in the same army. We have to decide where arms are coming from. We have to decide how the bills are going to be paid. We have to decide how our economies are going to be strengthened. These matters came before the meeting of the council in Ottawa. They were so immense and so perplexing that they were referred to a committee of twelve. I have heard that committee referred to as the twelve apostles, but unhappily there seems to be no Messiah. However, these problems have to be solved, and especially the problem of the continually recurring dollar deficit in Europe. In our time we have to solve the problem of security and progress for all people. We can only do so in union and unity.
United Nations and NATO
Apart from that those who may have to die in another war are not prepared to do nothing, and merely hope for the best. We have to explore every possible avenue in which there is any hope for security. I still maintain and believe that the greatest hope would be offered through some form of union amongst the democracies of the North Atlantic. Today we are building up defensive unity. Obviously it is not enough. We have to build up moral unity, spiritual unity, economic and political unity. When we have achieved that stage-and surely it is one we must arrive at in this generation-then we shall have created that sort of union which will spell hope for multitudes of people and which may well mean their salvation.


Mr. Ray Thomas (Wetaskiwin):: I listened with a great deal of interest, Mr. Speaker, to the address made yesterday by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson). I was glad to hear that he still puts a great deal of faith in the United Nations as a force in international affairs. I believe, as does every other member of this group, that the United Nations is the only organization that can achieve world peace. It is the only organization to which the different countries with quarrels can go, sit around a table to discuss their differences and possibly come to some sort of agreement. I believe also that had it not been for the United Nations we would already have become embroiled in a war. We do not want to forget, however, that the United Nations may fail in its efforts to achieve world peace. We may at any time, either soon or in the distant future, find ourselves embroiled in all-out war.
I should like to commend the Minister of Defence Production (Mr. Howe) for the outline he gave the other day of Canada's defence preparations. But at the same time I must caution the minister that while he is tooling up for this defence program he must never allow himself to tool up for the present moment only. As I said a moment ago, we never know when we are going to become embroiled in all-out war. While we are tooling up for defence today we must have one eye open for the time when an emergency may arise and we shall need all the equipment upon which we can lay our hands.
Many speakers, during this session and previous sessions, have been complaining that we are not getting full value for our defence dollar. That may be true. At the moment I am not prepared to say whether we are or whether we are not. But, Mr. Speaker, it is time we had a little action on these complaints. We must dig into contracts and find out just what is wrong. If these accusations are not justified, then I

United Nations and NATO
believe it is up to the government to prove that. In either case, I believe this house would be satisfied. There is only one way that can be achieved, and that is by setting up a defence expenditures committee similar to the war expenditures committee of the last war. This war expenditures committee did a great deal of fine work. If that method worked during a period of war, I see no reason why it should not work now. The government has a program of huge defence expenditures. The members of this house are not sufficiently advised as to what is happening. We have far too little information. It appears to me that the only way out is to set up this committee, dig into the expenditures, contracts and so on of our Department of National Defence and Department of Defence Production to ascertain whether or not we are getting full value.
The committee should look into the expenditures of the present as well as the past. How far back it should go I am not prepared to say, but possibly a year or a year and a half. It should be empowered to call any person for explanation; to dig into all the correspondence and contracts that have been drawn up so far. The government has been using security as a reason for not calling this committee. But if Canada's hush-hush projects are not any more secret than some of the meetings of NATO last month, then we may as well open the doors of Canada's defence plants and invite people in to see what is happening.
I should like to mention Korea briefly. It appears to me that there is entirely too much political interference with the military heads in Korea. The Chinese are killing off thousands of United Nations troops, including our own Canadian boys. Their air force is doing a terrific amount of damage on the ground and in the air; but they are untouchable because they are based across the border in Manchuria. It seems rather strange that these fellows in their planes can rip across into North Korea, bomb and strafe our troops and our supply bases, and shoot down our planes, then skip back across the Manchurian border and either figuratively or literally thumb their noses at us.
The minister said yesterday that Korean aggression must be brought to an end before any other Asiatic question can be settled. I agree. It is time that the United Nations discovered that this is not a game. If the planes are based in Manchuria, then wipe out the bases. The lives of our boys are far more important than any of the niceties of this game which are not observed by the other side anyway. Originally, Mr. Speaker, the United Nations force was sent into Korea to combat the North Korean aggression.

Arguments advanced at that time against bombing the military bases along the Manchurian border were probably valid. But now the North Korean army is practically non-existent. I believe one report the other day was to the effect that prisoners said there were exactly twenty-six North Korean soldiers left in one sector. We are not fighting North Korean aggression any more; we are fighting a Chinese army. We must fight them the best way that we can; and the best way to fight them is to clean out their supply bases before they have a chance to get their supplies into Korea. Clean out their supply bases; wipe out their aircraft; then the boys on the ground will have a little bit easier time in the mopping-up exercises that are going on there today.
I should like to say just one word to the hon. member who just took his seat. Those who advocate the federation of the world or a federation of any part of the world had better step carefully. This move could quite easily become diabolic. If the power were placed in the hands of the wrong people, it could certainly be a regime of oppression. Those who advocate giving up, in the name of security now, our national sovereignty to any world federation or any federation of nations would probably be the first ones to advocate giving up those same powers to the Soviet union in the name of international harmony.


Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, this resolution seeks the approval of the house for the continuation of Canada's participation in the efforts being made through the United Nations to establish international peace, and in particular to defeat aggression and restore peace in Korea, and by the North Atlantic treaty nations to deter aggression and promote stability and well-being in the north Atlantic area.
The party to which I belong has already taken its position on this resolution through the speech of the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) yesterday afternoon. Naturally we are all in favour of that resolution. I rise today merely to speak on two subjects which were dealt with yesterday by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson). The first is the question as to whether or not Canada should become a party to the treaty in the Pacific between Australia, New Zealand and the United States; and the second is whether Canada should adopt at this time a policy of re-uniting and strengthening the commonwealth.
As to the first subject, I urge that Canada ask Australia, New Zealand and the United States to be allowed to become a party to this Pacific security pact which was signed

between those nations at San Francisco just a few weeks ago. Yesterday, in dealing with this question^ the minister said, that he supposed there would be no particular objection to Canada's becoming a party to that pact. He thought that the other three nations perhaps would not object, and that possibly the Canadian government would not object strongly. I submit that a neutral attitude of that kind is not good enough for those Canadians who live on the Pacific slope; and if it is not good enough for them, it is not good enough for Canadians, regardless of where they may live in this country.
In the Pacific area, a year ago, there was no security pact of any kind other than the United Nations organization itself. When aggression took place in Korea it was only possible for the United Nations to act because at that time Russia was sulking and was not sitting in on the meetings of the security council. In addition to the aggression in Korea, we have at least two incipient wars in the Pacific area: one in Indo-China and one in Malaya. There is a real danger of a third world war in the Pacific area. To the unbiased observer it would seem that a third world war might start as a result of happenings in the Pacific area much more readily than because of any happenings in the Atlantic area. Yet in the north Atlantic area the free nations have adopted a policy of uniting to become so strong that they will deter and prevent aggression in that particular area. Surely if such a policy is sound for the Atlantic, it is equally sound for the Pacific.
In recent weeks a start has been made. The United States is entering into a pact with Japan and another pact with the Philippines. Then, of course, there is the three-power pact, to which I referred a few moments ago, between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Are we to have in the Pacific, instead of a general security pact, merely a series of bilateral or trilateral agreements? It may be that this is the policy desired by the United States. But if that is to be the case then I think the minister should tell the house frankly, and say where the Canadian government stands on a policy of that kind. I repeat that if a security pact is good for the Atlantic, it would appear that there should be the same type of pact for the Pacific, and a start has been made in this Australia-New Zealand-United States treaty.
Yesterday the minister intimated with a rather flippant air that Canada had not been invited to become a party to this treaty, and. of course there was a laugh from the government benches; but that is not the story given by the reporters who sat in at San Francisco
United Nations and NATO last month. I hold in my hand a press dispatch from Ross Munro, dated September 1, 1951, and issued from San Francisco, in which he deals with this three-power treaty. Ross Munro is one of the best correspondents this country has ever produced. I do not believe that anyone would question the accuracy of his reporting or the unbiased nature of his reports. Here is what Mr. Munro had to say with regard to this treaty:
A security pact "to strengthen the fabric of peace in the Pacific area" is being signed here today by Australia. New Zealand and the United States, and Canada probably will join in ultimately.
The three countries in this new alliance, which is similar to the security arrangement entered into earlier in the week between the Philippines and the United States, are anxious-
And I repeat these words:
-are anxious that Canada becomes a partner to stretch the alliance from the Arctic to the Antarctic. They are patient about a Canadian move, however, realizing the large commitment Canada has undertaken in the Atlantic area as a member of the North Atlantic pact. But persuasive arguments are likely to be put to the Canadian government in the next six months or a year to bring Canada into the Pacific pact and round out the security grouping. This is anticipated in the text of the treaty which says it is an arrangement for collective defence and the preservation of peace and security "pending the development of a more comprehensive system of regional security in the Pacific area."
Mr. Munro quotes a statement by the Australian ambassador to the United States, Mr. Percy Spender, who was formerly Australian minister of external affairs. Mr. Spender is quoted as saying:
It is no exaggeration to say that here in this ocean will take place great historical events which will determine not only the destinies of western civilization but of free men and women throughout the world. This treaty, he continued, takes the first step "towards what we hope will prove to be an ever-widening system of peaceful security in this vital area."
This dispatch certainly does not indicate that Canada would not be welcomed if she applied to join this pact. Canada of course is a Pacific power. It seems very difficult to bring that fact home to some hon. members from the eastern parts of the country. But Canada is a Pacific power just as she is an Atlantic power. In fact she is also an Arctic power, and that may be of more significance to us in the years that lie ahead than either of the other two situations.
Canada would help if she joined a pact of this kind. She would help to attract other peace-loving nations, and I think would greatly help to stabilize things in the Pacific region. Take for instance the question of trade. The North Atlantic treaty is not only a defence treaty; it is also a treaty for promoting co-operation in trade and in economic matters. A treaty in the Pacific should have exactly the same kind of provision, and
298

United Nations and NATO Canada is vitally concerned with trade in the Pacific. Before the last war Australia was our third best customer, and New Zealand was either fifth or eighth. Trade with China, too, was of great importance; and also with Japan. Certainly, with the two other nations in the commonwealth, Canadian trade is of the greatest importance, and would be increased by Canada becoming a party to this particular treaty.
I submit to the Secretary of State for External Affairs that public opinion on the west coast should not be ignored in this matter. I think that all of the leading papers in British Columbia have taken a stand in favour of Canada becoming a party to a Pacific pact. I have here editorials from the two leading Vancouver papers, the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun. They reflect opinion throughout that province, certainly, on this question. I hold in my hand an editorial from the Sun dated July 16, 1951. It is headed "Look westward, Ottawa", and reads:
Defence affairs are moving swiftly in the Pacific ocean area and Canada is being left behind.
United States, Australia and New Zealand have agreed on the outline of a three-way defence treaty, not unlike the North Atlantic treaty. It will probably be signed after the Japanese peace conference in San Francisco in September. Canada should be a signer-but won't under present conditions.
Ottawa hasn't properly digested the fact that the Pacific ocean is not a back door to the dominion but a front gate opening on an increasingly important part of the world.
Then the editorial goes on to support the plea, and it ends in this way:
A Pacific defence pact, eventually drawing in other countries besides the original group, will have not only practical but moral effects. And this is more important.
Just as the North Atlantic alliance has blocked Russian aggressiveness, so a Pacific alliance will notify not only Russia but others that military adventures are dangerous.
Canada could add greatly to the strength of this moral lesson and should by all means be a party to the treaty.
Then there is an editorial from the Vancouver Province dated September 4, 1951, and which is headed "Canada stays out", and reads:
If the government of Canada is not aware of the fact that this country is a Pacific power it is about time somebody jabbed it into life. And if the government is alive to the fact that this country faces the Pacific as well as the Atlantic it is about time it signified what it is going to do about the Pacific security pact signed by Australia, New Zealand and United States.
Canada is not in the pact. The other signatories, our partners in two world wars against aggression and certain to be our allies if another one comes, would like us in on the deal.
The best argument for Canada to join her partners in signing this pact is the paragraph which states:
Then it sets out the paragraph in the pact which calls for mutual assistance in the event of an attack. The editorial ended as follows:
In the face of that, if there is any way the Canadian government can argue itself onto the sidelines then we would like to hear about it. We are a Pacific power and certainly if any of the other three get into trouble we will be in trouble.
No matter what commitments we may have made looking eastward, we cannot remain out of the pact of free peoples on the Pacific.
I have a further editorial from the Sun
which was written after the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) had been in Vancouver and addressed a public meeting there held under the auspices of the United Nations Society. This editorial is headed, "Now for a Pacific Pact?" and referring to the minister's speech, it states:
He said Japan could make a contribution to the collective security of the free nations and out of the emergence of Japan in this way might come a single Pacific pact to cover all the other security agreements. He was sure, he added, that Canada would take its part in such a pact as it had in the North Atlantic pact.
This is an important new concession on the part of the man who has charge of Canada's foreign policy. Up to now the federal government has shown a disinclination-amounting at times almost to hostility-to even discuss a Pacific pact.
At best it has taken the line that the time isn't ripe and that Canada is fully covered by its exchange of pledges with the United States.
Mr. Pearson, standing on the shores of the Pacific in Vancouver, acknowledged that this province has been more interested than any other part of Canada in the problems of the Pacific. Then he added something very significant:
"We are becoming more conscious in the east that Canada is a Pacific power."
This shows where the trouble has been all along. Not only has eastern Canada been unconscious of Canada's responsibilities and dangers in the Pacific, it has been unaware until lately that there was a Pacific.
I think that is a little hard on the minister, but we should start right now to build up a permanent peace in the Pacific. We are undertaking commitments to Greece and Turkey who are now to be invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. If there should be an attack on the farthest part of Turkey, Canada will be committed to go to her assistance. How can you justify a policy under which this nation at the same time refuses to become a party to this Australia-New Zealand-United States treaty, which at least is a start on a security pact for the Pacific area?
May I tell the minister that the west coast is pretty tired of the continued refusal on the part of the Canadian government to enter into a Pacific pact.
My second point arising out of the remarks made by the minister yesterday has to do with the commonwealth. I urge upon the ministers of the crown that they adopt a

deliberate policy of reuniting and strengthening the commonwealth. Yesterday the minister met my submissions of last week by drawing a red herring across the trail. He set up a straw man and then knocked him down. The minister said that the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra was advocating the centralization of the commonwealth which would only make the commonwealth weaker. Of course that resulted in headlines across the front page of the Ottawa Journal as follows: Pearson Rejects High Command Idea in CommonWealth, Favours Teamwork-One Central Authority Dangerous
His whole statement in answer to my suggestion was based on a false premise because I did not advocate centralization of the commonwealth; I advocated strengthening the commonwealth. I said, and I repeat today, that in 1945 at the end of the war there were three great groups of people, the people of the United States, the people of Russia and the people of the British commonwealth. In the last war parts of the commonwealth outside the United Kingdom supplied at least half of the fighting forces. It was a commonwealth effort. The Right Hon. Winston Churchill put the position very clearly. I have here a report of a radio speech he made from Moscow to the Russian people in October, 1944, when he was in that capital interviewing Premier Stalin. Mr. Churchill made a fine appeal to the Russian people for co-operation, and ended with these words:
I hope most earnestly and I believe with deep conviction that the warrior statesman at the head of Russia through these years of storm and tempest will bring his country into the sunlight of a broader and happier age for all, and with him in this task will march the British commonwealth of nations and the mighty United States of America.
That was the position in 1944 and 1945. Now in 1951 there are only two instead of three great strong blocs of people, the American and the Russian. Even the minister is worried about that fact and he dealt with it at some length yesterday. Dealing with the situation at the present time in the United Nations, he said, as reported on page 257 of Hansard of October 22:
There are two main developments which lead me to say that. One is the division of the world which has now become hardened into competing and conflicting blocs, and which has been reflected at the last two assemblies in every discussion there. If this is going to continue indefinitely, it certainly is going to undermine the usefulness of the assembly as a universal organization.
Liberal party policy is partially responsible for the world now being in two great blocs instead of three, as it was at the end of the hostilities in 1945. The late Mr. Mackenzie King took the position in 1944, when the suggestion was made that members of the
United Nations and NATO commonwealth should go into the peace together, that there should be world unity, not an empire bloc. He said that if the nations of the empire appeared together in this matter, appeared to stand too closely together, the other nations of the world would be afraid and as a result it would be impossible to bring about world unity. We told him at that time that that was a false doctrine, that the commonwealth should stick together in peace as it had in war; but he insisted that we must have world unity, not an empire bloc, and today we have neither world unity nor an empire bloc. We have lost out on both of them.
We found the same attitude adopted with regard to Canadian troops in Germany. Canada had troops there but they were withdrawn, I think in 1946. The reasons for that withdrawal were asked for on the floor of the House of Commons and if hon. members are interested they will find the reference on page 975 of Hansard of March 3, 1947. The present Prime Minister was then Secretary of State for External Affairs. He was asked by the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) to give the reasons why the occupation forces in Germany had been withdrawn, and here is the answer he gave:
The occupation force in Germany was withdrawn because we were left out.
Actually what he said was, "because we were kicked out". We all heard him say that; the press gallery members heard it; people in the public galleries heard him, but when Hansard appeared next day it read "left out" instead of "kicked out". Then the present Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) went on to say, as recorded at page 975 of Hansard for March 3, 1947:
We were told by the great powers that there would be three zones; that there would be a fourth if France wanted one, but there were not to be any others; and that their commanders were to constitute the government of Germany. I suppose the Russians might perhaps have accepted our cooperation;-
All this was said with great heat.
-the French might have accepted our co-operation; the United States might have accepted it and the United Kingdom might have accepted it; but we would not have had any occupation force of ours taking any separate part in the legal occupation of Germany.
Today the present Prime Minister is coming to the house and asking approval for the sending back of an occupation force to Germany, and he has not a separate zone today any more than he had in 1946. The same trend has been shown right down through the intervening years. In 1947 there was to be a commonwealth conference in Australia to discuss the terms of a peace
300

United Nations and NATO treaty for Japan. Before the Canadian delegate could appear at Canberra the Canadian ambassador to the United States at Washington had to go and assure the United States secretary of state that no agreement would be reached at Canberra between the commonwealth countries. I have here the reaction of a great Liberal to that particular subject.
I have a book by the Right Hon. Vincent Massey entitled, "On Being Canadian". At page 105 he has this to say with regard to this incident:
At all times we should refuse to accept the notion that there is any impropriety in our consulting together on any matter of common concern. When it was reported in the press in 1947 that we had assured the United States government that the forthcoming commonwealth conference on the peace treaty with Japan did not foreshadow the formation of a British "common front," these representations seemed both unnecessary and undignified.
We had the same sort of attitude this year when there was a commonwealth conference with regard to defence questions in the Middle East. The Prime Minister dealt with that on May 31 at page 3589 of Hansard. He told the house that, although there was to be a conference of ministers of all other nations of the commonwealth-


Lester Bowles Pearson: Not all.


Howard Charles Green: -at least of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom, to deal with defence problems in the Middle East, Canada was not sufficiently concerned to send a minister but she would send somebody from one of the departments. That is the area in respect of which Canada is now undertaking commitments, in Greece and Turkey, and it must have been known to the government at the end of May that such commitments likely would be undertaken. Nevertheless the Prime Minister refused to send a minister to attend that conference.
The same thing happened with regard to the conference of prime ministers in January of this year. I have a London press dispatch from Peter Inglis of the Southam press shortly before that conference took place stating that it was being called to try to work out some commonwealth policy with regard to Asia. As the house knows, such a policy was not worked out. We might have avoided a great deal of the trouble in Asia if there had been some commonwealth policy worked out for that area.
Then, so far as I can find, Canada so far has taken no position whatever with respect to Iran. Here there was an agreement which was broken by Iran. Great difficulties arose for Great Britain, and so far as I can see Canada did not take any stand on that question. She did not even offer moral support.

When trouble came a few days ago in Egypt, Canada, instead of supporting Great Britain and standing beside Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, waited until the United States and France had taken their position in support of Great Britain. Then Canada came along and said, "me too". I suggest to the house that sort of policy is not in the best interests of this nation, the commonwealth or the world.
We have had the same sort of hesitating, on-the-fence policy with regard to the forces with which Canadian troops would serve both in Korea and in Europe. We did not know for a long time whether they were going to serve with the British and other commonwealth troops or with troops of the United States. In Europe the new Canadian army is to serve with the British forces while the Canadian air force is to serve with the United States air force, and I presume Canadian troops will not have coverage from their own Canadian air force.
Then there is the question of the attack by the Argentine on Great Britain with respect to the Falkland islands. Here you have the Argentine republic making the claim that these islands should belong to the Argentine. Where does Canada stand on that question? If we are going to work together continuously and have any effect on world affairs then the commonwealth must stand much more closely together than it is doing at the present time. I believe that the British commonwealth could be the greatest factor in bringing about world peace. I should like to quote again from page 102 of Mr. Massey's book where he sets out the reason why the commonwealth must always stand for world peace. He says:
In contrast to the two great continental empires, the United States and Russia, the commonwealth is a network between continents. So far as the dominions are concerned, "though their interests are regional, they can never in the nature of things be exclusively so. They link the old world and the new, bound to Europe through Great Britain more closely than other independent overseas countries have been, yet responding to all the forces which characterize the frontier areas of western civilization." The commonwealth, in the nature of things, can never be isolationist. It can never be a self-contained group of states. It stands to gain from unity among nations. It can never profit by their division. Its interests are essentially those of moderation and harmonization. On a grand scale it performs the functions of an interpreter between peoples. It must be vitally interested in any great organization set up to maintain security. Today it has thrown all the weight of its experience and influence and power behind the United Nations. It has been observed that the commonwealth is never so active as when it is dealing with problems bigger than itself.
Very significant words were spoken too by one of our former civil servants, the late Mr. R. G. Riddell, who the minister will agree

was one of the outstanding public servants of this country. He ended a speech on the commonwealth as a regional force, which was delivered on July 9, 1950, at the Mount Holyoke Institute of the United Nations, with these words with respect to the commonwealth:
... it is one of the genuinely effective instruments which we have at hand for the preservation of peace and in the development of the free world.
Canada can do more than any other member nation to reunite and strengthen the commonwealth. That is so because of our geographic position, because of our greatly increased resources, and because of Canada's record in this century. I would hope that the commonwealth would come to be recognized again as a third world group. I would hope also that there would be a French group recognized as a great world group. Anything would be preferable to having the world divided into two power blocs, as it is at the present time.
I suggest that a two-power world is a highly dangerous world. Our poor old world is becoming more dangerous every day, and partially for the reason I have just indicated. Today, in 1951, we find ourselves in the midst of an armament race which makes anything that happened prior to the first or second world wars look pretty small. A two-power world makes world peace almost impossible -certainly makes it very much more difficult than if there were other divisions.
The minister must not underestimate the will for peace in Canada. I believe that in our cities and towns, and out on our farms, the main desire of the people is for peace. Sometimes we are inclined to overlook that when we are here in Ottawa, discussing these world issues. I believe that will for peace is tremendously strong in Canada at this time. My own opinion is that Canada can do more to promote peace by strengthening the commonwealth than in any other way.


Mr. D. S. Harkness (Calgary East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say at the outset that I support this resolution wholeheartedly as, indeed, has every other speaker who has taken part in the debate. As a matter of fact, my criticism of our foreign affairs policy and our defence efforts in the past has been that we were not doing enough, and that our defence preparations were inadequate even for the defence of our own country, let alone adequate to provide any forces for a general defence of the free world against Russian imperialism. In other words, I said we were not pulling our weight-and I do not believe we are yet pulling our weight.
It is true that during the past six months we have improved in this respect, a source
United Nations and NATO of satisfaction to all Canadians, with the exception of that small number of communists in Canada, and those other people who are so set on peace at any price that they are blind to the dangers of the present world situation.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) said in his speech yesterday that the international situation has not improved in the last six months. That is a conclusion shared, I should think, by all who have been reading the newspapers and giving any thought to the matter during that period. In my opinion the general situation during this period of time has not only failed to improve, but has worsened, due particularly to the developments in the Middle East, where the spark which might set off the conflagration of a third world war could flare up more easily than is the case in the Far East.
The Korean war is as discouraging as ever. The long dragging on of the armistice talks there indicates that the communists have no real desire to make peace, except on their own terms. The minister said, in connection with the Korean war, that the United Nations forces there have already shown, at heavy cost to themselves, but far heavier to the enemy, that aggression does not pay. I wonder if that is the conclusion shared by the Kremlin. I would be much more inclined to think that, as someone has said, the Russians are ready to fight to the last Korean or the last Chinese, and that the more men we lose and the more equipment we deploy and use up in Korea, the better pleased the Russians are likely to be. It means just that much less strength we can deploy against them in the vital theatre of Europe, or in the Middle East.
The thing that still bothers me most about Korea is the lack of any definite objective there. Because slugging it out with the communists along the 38th parallel cannot be called an objective. We seem to be in the unfortunate position of the man who has a tiger by the tail: we dare not expand the war, which would bring about the possibility of ending it successfully, and we dare not pull our forces out of Korea.
It is an impossible position in which to be placed, both militarily and politically; and I believe the longer it goes on, the worse the situation will be for the free world.
The minister's statement in regard to the Pacific pact was weak. It did not meet the arguments which have been offered in the past and again today by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green) in regard to
PROVINCIAL LIBRAKi,

United Nations and NATO
the desirability of a defence arrangement in the Pacific area to which we would be a party.
I thought the minister's remarks with regard to commonwealth relations were even weaker. As the hon. member for Vancouver -Quadra has already said, by talking about the impossibility of setting up a central parliament, or something of that nature, the minister drew a red herring across suggestions made recommending closer relations with the commonwealth. So far as I know that has not been suggested by anyone.
As a matter of fact during the past ten or fifteen years the present government has steadily weakened the ties with the commonwealth, and I believe that has been a great mistake. The result of that has been a weakening of the commonwealth's position, which really means a weakening of the position of the whole free world, as opposed to the communist or Russian world, along with their satellites.
This debate has been a mixture of foreign affairs and defence matters. Indeed the two are closely connected. I shall proceed now to make a few remarks in regard more particularly to defence. To begin, I should like to say something about certain statements made in the house last week with respect to defence matters by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Campney). At that time he sought to show particularly that the public accounts committee, which dealt last year with defence expenditures, had been one called for by members of this party, but which we had not attended. He said particularly that on June 21, when an adjournment for lack of a quorum became necessary, it was noted that at the time of adjournment those present consisted of seventeen Liberals, one C.C.F., one Independent, and not a single Progressive Conservative.
I fear that in this instance the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has followed the lead of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in accepting the theory that one swallow makes a summer. He referred to only one meeting. I went to the trouble to look into the record of all the meetings and to find out the attendance of Conservatives, Liberals, and members of other groups at each of those meetings.
Starting on March 8 and continuing until March 21, the number of Conservatives present at the meetings of this committee were 3, 6, 4, 5, 3, 2, 3, 7, 8, 5, 3, 6, 5, 2, 6, 5, 5, 6, 7, 5, 4, 5, 0. The last meeting was held while the house was in session, and members
[Mr. Harkness.l
of this party who were members of the committee found it necessary to be in this chamber. The fact is that if you average the attendance of the members of the Conservative party and the members of the Liberal party, the attendance for each is much about the same. Much more important than the attendance at the committee is the amount of interest that members took in the affairs of the committee as evidenced by the questions they asked. This is conclusively shown by the number of pages of the proceedings of the committee which are devoted to questions asked by the members of the opposition and the answers given. I did not count those pages as the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) once counted the pages of Hansard which each party had taken up, but I looked them over rather quickly. Certainly well over three-quarters of the pages of the proceedings of the committee are consumed by the questions asked by members of the opposition and the answers to them. I believe that effectively disposes of the argument made by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre that the members of the opposition did not take any interest in the affairs of this committee. As a matter of fact I think it was extremely unfair of him to try to prove that was the situation, by using as an example a meeting held at the end of the session while the house was sitting and it was impossible for most of us to attend.
In his speech yesterday the Minister of National Defence did not tell us very much that we did not know already. I would say that in that respect his statement was typical of many which we have been given in the past. During the last three or four years one of my chief complaints has been the evasiveness of the government concerning defence matters. The reason given for this has always been security. We cannot tell you this or that for security reasons. I do not think there is any question but that the government has been, and still is, much more concerned with concealing the true state of our defences from our own people than from the Russians. U,p to a year ago the weakness of our defences was so apparent that there was really nothing to conceal. From the government's point of view, however, it was important to conceal that weakness from the people of Canada.
Even worse than the evasiveness concerning the state of our defences has been the fact that a large number of statements issued by the defence department or by the minister have been misleading, whether purposely so or not. In these various statements the minister has always said that everything is just right. There is no need to worry about our defences at all.


Mr. Claxion:: When has he ever said that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: According to those statements we have always had adequate forces to handle any foreseeable emergency.


Brooke Claxton: When has he ever said that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: At the moment I cannot dig out the pages of Hansard.


Brooke Claxton: Of course, you cannot dig out one.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It would be very easy to bring out numbers of them.


Brooke Claxton: How about one?


Douglas Scott Harkness: As the minister well knows, when a man is making a speech there is no use asking him to dig up Hansard. However, I shall be happy to dig up a number of those passages, and bring them here on a subsequent occasion.
As I say, Mr. Speaker, always the statement was that we had adequate forces for any foreseeable emergency. What happened? An emergency did develop. The Korean war broke out and immediately it was made apparent to everyone in this house that we had no forces to do anything. On two or three occasions since that time I have stated, and I repeat it now-it has never been denied -that at that time we had only one army unit up to strength and fully trained which could have been dispatched to Korea, and that was the first battalion of the P.P.C.L.I. This was the only army unit that we had in a state of readiness. For two years before that the minister had been saying that our defences were adequate for any foreseeable emergency. That is only one example of that sort of thing. As I say, the statements, whether intentionally or not, have been misleading to this house and to the people of Canada.
Since that time the state of our defence has improved. There is no question about that, and I am extremely glad it is so. As a matter of fact, there was no other course. However, these defences still have remarkably little in the way of fighting units to show for the large amounts of money that have been spent, and the sixteen months which have elapsed since the outbreak of the Korean war. One of the difficulties that we in this house and the people of the country have had to face has been that plans for the future have been always announced as though they were actual facts at the time of the announcement or that they were going to be in effect in a few weeks. The general impression given to the people has been that those plans were actualities, whereas in most cases they
United Nations and NATO are still plans. I realize as well as anyone else that you cannot translate plans into actual forces in being very quickly. It takes time to do that. But there is no reason at all for giving the impression that those plans are actualities when they are not.
The announcements which were made in connection with our air force are good examples. The announcement about F-86E Sabre jets and the construction of the CF-100 long range fighter were such as to persuade the general public that large numbers of these planes were either coming off the assembly line or would be within a short time. The disclosures made by the articles written by Mr. Hornick of the Globe and Mail, that Sabre production is limited to 20 a month because of a lack of engines, and that large scale production of the CF-100 is still well in the future, were not denied by the parliamentary assistant, the member for Vancouver Centre, when he spoke last week. He merely stated that those articles were misleading. Perhaps they are. I do not know enough about the matter to say. No one else in this chamber knows enough to say, except the minister and his assistants. I am quite sure that those articles were not as misleading as the statements put out by this government.
In regard to those misleading statements, there is no use pawing over a lot of old hay. There have been numerous examples of that sort of thing. A moment ago the minister was asking me to cite one example of a statement he had made. A perfect example of the statements he has made which serve to mislead the public is the one he made a year ago when he said that Canada had more trained paratroopers on hand than Germany used to capture Holland and Belgium in 1940. That statement immediately suggested to the general public that we had thousands and thousands of them, because the general impression that everybody had-it was the one given at the time-was that the Germans released' thousands and tens of thousands of these paratroops. As a matter of fact, the actual figures as to the number that were released were given in a book by Captain Liddell Hart and which I happened to get hold of immediately afterwards. I quoted those figures in the house, when the minister said that he thought the number the Germans had used was smaller and he had obtained that impression from some other source. The minister was asking for an example. I quote that as one example of the type of statement that is constantly being made and that terribly misleads the Canadian people and the members of this house as to what our actual

United Nations and NATO strength is at any particular time. I think it is an extremely bad practice and one which should not continue to be followed.
I should like to comment on a few of the things the minister said in his speech yesterday. The first is this. The minister said that this year $1,900 million is available for defence purposes, that is for 1951-52. I was going to ask the minister where he scared up the extra $200 million. The amount we voted last year was something less than $1,700 million. I just wondered what pot the minister dipped into in order to get this $200 million. In connection with that matter I should also like to ask how much of this $1,900 million has been used for defence purposes and, on the other hand, how much of it is in the Minister of Finance's big surplus of $500 million. It is all very well for us in this house to vote funds for defence; but there is not much use of our voting them if they are not spent in an effective manner for that purpose. There is a great question in my mind as to how much has actually gone into the production of defence equipment for the building up of our defence forces and, as I say, how much is still sitting in the Minister of Finance's kitty.
The minister spoke of the number of casualties to date in Korea. Like everyone else in this house, I exceedingly regret those casualties. The question I should like to ask is what the total wastage has been. As the minister knows, and as does everyone who is familiar with these matters, the number of battle casualties does not by any means represent the total casualties in a fighting force. There is a great deal of wastage from other causes. People become ill, people are sent back to Canada for compassionate reasons, and so on.
The minister stated that the dispatch of the first battalion of the P.P.C.L.I. to Korea would not weaken our home defence airborne brigade. I find it extremely difficult to understand the basis on which he arrives at that conclusion. The P.P.C.L.I. happen to be a unit with which I am familiar. They have been in Calgary since the last war. I have the honour to be an honorary member of their mess and I go out there quite frequently. That battalion have now all departed for Korea. How the absence of that battalion is being made up at the present time I do not know or the minister has not explained. When the second battalion gets back, which will be some time before Christmas, and has had six months' training in paratroop exercises, this deficiency will be made up. That is quite understandable. But during this period of nine months or so there seems to be a lag, as far as I can see. Therefore as to the statement the minister has made so often in the past, to the effect that we must have

this airborne brigade in Canada for our own defence, that situation no longer exists. We have not got the brigade; we have only two-thirds of it. A third of it has gone and will not be replaced for nine months.
The minister said that the F-86E Sabres were moving off the assembly line at the planned rate; then he added these words, and I think it was extremely judicious of him: "limited only by supplies of engines, etc.". I was going to ask whether this supply of twenty engines per month was part of the planning. Did they anticipate that situation or is that a surprise? According to these articles previously referred to, apparently those are all the engines we can get from the United States. Therefore, no matter how many air frames we can make, our production of planes is limited to twenty complete ones a month. I think the house is entitled to some explanation with regard to this whole situation, both as to the F-86E and as to the CF-100. Certainly until we get from the government an explanation in connection with these two planes, there is going to be a great deal of speculation as to rates of production, as to what has been happening, as to whether there has been a serious mix-up, or what the situation is.
In connection with the air force also, the minister said they had done a fine thing in doing away really with all the operational squadrons in 1945 and 1946. He said that had the squadrons been kept in being in 1946 they would now be obsolete both in machines and in men. Surely the supply of young men coming on to be trained would have been kept up. There has been a certain amount of that going on in the air force right through. They could not in the meantime just say:	We will
not train any more people; this is the end. As to our machines, what has happened is that only in this last year the government has bought one hundred Mustang fighters which are just as obsolete, more or less, as are the planes that we had at the end of the war, and has evidently trained men to go into those planes or has put into those planes men that they had kept on right through. Therefore I think that argument of the minister falls completely to the ground, as to the wisdom they showed in this regard.
As to the reserves for our two overseas brigades, the minister gave us some information. He said there were 30,000 men now in the two brigades, the reserves for them and in schools. I wonder if the minister, at a later date, will tell us how those figures are arrived at. We should like to know how many men are in each brigade, how many reserves are kept for each, whether they are kept separately or whether they are in a common

pool for the two brigades. We should also like to know what he means by schools. Are the personnel who are at these schools running them, carrying them on and so forth, included in this figure?


Brooke Claxton: No.


Douglas Scott Harkness: This figure is just as to the men who are going through the schools?


Brooke Claxton: That is right.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think we should have a little bit more information with regard to that matter. I should particularly like to know whether this brigade going to Europe is taking any reserves with it or whether it is just going there as a full strength brigade group.
Very little was said about the reserve defence forces of the country. The minister said that the numbers had increased from 50,700 odd to 54,000. That, I took it, was the strength of all the reserve force, army, navy and air force. Of course it is the paper strength. We should be told how many of these people attended camp last year. As has been pointed out 'here on many occasions before, the paper strength of the reserve means nothing, because it includes a very large number of people who attend one, two or three parades a year, and that is all. The effective strength of the reserve consists, you might say, of the people who go to camp and get that training, plus a limited number of others.
The minister also said that aircrew and equipment for a squadron were now being turned out at the rate of one every two months; in other words, men and equipment every two months to man one squadron. I wonder whether the minister will tell us what kind of squadrons these are. Are they all jet squadrons, or do they take in training squadrons, and so forth?-because that makes an extremely big difference in what the statement of the minister means.
We should also be told what is the rate of wastage allowed for in these plans. There is a considerable amount of wastage. Planes crash, as we know only too well. We should be told what rate of wastage is being allowed for as far as this statement is concerned. So much for some specific points which the minister mentioned in his speech. I should now like to ask other questions in regard to the equipment situation. In his speech the minister did not really say anything about the equipment situation, apart from the statement I have just referred to in connection with the production of squadrons from now on. I should like to know whether we have received United States type rifles and other small arms sufficient to replace those
United Nations and NATO which we have sent to Europe in the last year under our NATO obligations. If we have not received these, when are we going to get them?
At the end of last session I think the minister said that there were a certain number of these United States type small arms on their way. How many was not specified.
I should like to know what our situation is as far as guns are concerned. Have we received United States 105's, and other guns, to replace the 25-pounders which we sent to Europe? If not, we are in the same situation we were in when parliament adjourned at the end of June. We have got rid of the arms we had and we have not received any others to replace them. I trust that situation does not still prevail. We should have information on it.


Brooke Claxton: We still have surplus 25-pounders over and above everything.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is another of these general statements. When the minister says "we have surplus 25-pounders", what are they surplus to?


Brooke Claxton: To all our requirements.


Douglas Scott Harkness: What are our requirements?


Brooke Claxton: What we need to fight in the first year of a war.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Once more we are getting what you might call general statements, which, unless you break them right down, do not mean anything, the very thing that I have complained about so frequently.
Furthermore, what is our situation in regard to tanks and S.P. guns? We shipped the S.P. anti-tank guns that we had over to Europe also. Have we received anything yet to replace them? Similarly, with our tanks; I do not know how many of them were shipped to Europe. I refer to the Sherman tanks, and so forth. Have we received any replacements for these? Generally speaking, we should be told something about what our equipment situation is, and we have not been told that up to date.
I do not know what further opportunities there may be to deal with defence matters, Mr. Speaker. I have asked a considerable number of questions at this time because of that very fact, but I would hope that we might have a further opportunity to discuss defence matters before this session ends.


Mr. George H. Hees (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to agree completely with what the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) said yesterday afternoon when he expressed the opinion that visits by members of the royal family are the greatest unifying

United Nations and NATO force in the British commonwealth of nations. I think we want a great many more of these visits in the future. We all hope that Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh will return soon, and that the king and the queen will come out here again when the king's health permits. I think we would all like to see Princess Margaret Rose before too long.
However, Mr. Speaker, if we are to expect members of the royal family to want to come here and visit us, we must show a great deal more thoughtfulness than has been evidenced during this present tour. The schedule that they have been subjected to is, I believe, both exhausting and inhuman. It seems to me that it has been designed more to flatter the ego of Canadian officialdom than to show the royal couple off to the people of Canada, which, after all, was the express desire of Princess Elizabeth before she came to this country.
I have played a good deal of football, Mr. Speaker, but I have never gone through a schedule that was as trying and exhausting as the schedule to which our Princess is being subjected at the present time. In the two cities in which I came in contact with the visit, Ottawa and Toronto, a great deal of time was devoted to civic luncheons, dinners and receptions. The royal couple were continually surrounded by the same small group of officials, and they were introduced to the same people over and over again. Because of these functions, the drives which the royal couple were able to make through the cities and towns they visited had to be speeded up to such an extent that the people were only able to get a very brief glance at them as they went by.
Along with thousands of other people, I went out on the driveway here in Ottawa to see them enter this city. A great many of the people who were waiting there had waited there for more than two hours before the royal couple drove by, and when they did so, the people got only a fleeting glance at them. The expressions of opinion around where I was standing were of great disappointment indeed. That was the feeling in Toronto and, I am told, in a great many other Ontario centres as well; that the people waited for a great length of time to look at the royal couple, and then they were driven by so quickly that they were able to see only one or the other, and that only fleetingly, before they were out of sight. I believe that the greatest part of these royal visits should consist of slow drives through the streets of the towns and cities they visit. It would be far less exhausting on the royal visitors, and it would give the people of Canada a good look at them, which, after all, is the primary purpose of these visits.


I also believe that when these royal visitors come to Canada they should be given at least two days off in every week so that they can recuperate and relax, completely away from other people. If they do not, I think we are taking a great chance of their cracking up. I believe that most people in this country favour the five-day week. It is only reasonable to treat our royal visitors in the same way as we ourselves like to be treated, when they are going through a far greater strain, and working far harder than we are, while they are here visiting us.
Yesterday I was very glad to hear the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) say that the Colombo plan is going ahead. I noticed from what he said that a large part of our contribution to India is being taken in wheat shipments. I hope the government will do all it can to see that the original purpose of the plan, which was the construction of long-time development projects, will be proceeded with and will not be confused with famine relief. There is no famine in India today. If one develops next year, I hope sincerely that we will make available wheat which the Indians are able to accept. By so doing, we will make a tremendous psychological gain in the struggle we are engaged in against the communists for the confidence of the people of Asia.
Yesterday the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) told us that we are not members of a Pacific pact because the United States has signed separate pacts with Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Japan, and Canada has not been invited to join a Pacific pact. I should like to ask the minister if Canada has ever approached the United States with the idea of our being included in a Pacific pact. If we have done so, what was the answer given by the United States government? I believe that the need for a Pacific pact is just as great as the need for an Atlantic pact. I believe that the chances of aggression breaking out again in the Pacific are every bit as great as are the chances of aggression breaking out in Europe. Our chances of stopping a would-be aggressor before he starts something in the Pacific will be far greater if a group of nations are banded together there, as they are banded together under the North Atlantic alliance. For that reason I believe that a Pacific pact is a vital necessity to this country today. I urge the government to approach the United States government and put forward our desire to be a member of such a pact.


Mr. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my purpose in participating in this debate is to draw to the attention of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. OCTOBER 23. 1951
Claxton) a serious omission in his plans for the Canadian army. I am not in disagreement with the over-all policy of assistance to the United Nations in its action in Korea nor to the dispatch of Canadian forces to Europe, but what I think is wrong is the nature of the forces that are being developed for warfare.
It may be that for Korea the normal type of infantry brigade with supporting arms is most useful. The nature of the fighting there seems to indicate that the dogged infantryman, plodding along by his own motive power, is required for that hilly country. The airborne brigade for Canada's defence is also a development and type of training that is suitable for the role conceived for that brigade. But for Canada's participation in Europe I believe that a different type of formation should be organized. I am of the opinion that Canada's efforts should be directed to the development of a highly-trained mobile striking force consisting of tanks and self-propelled artillery and infantry carried in armoured tracked vehicles. In other words, Canada should supply shock troops, especially trained and highly mobile in armoured vehicles, all heavily armed. In two great wars, and now once again in Korea, Canada's fighting men have proved that they have no superior on the battlefield. The famous Canadian corps was selected in 1918 by Foch to spearhead the counter-attack at Amiens that heralded the beginning of a hundred days of success. In the second war Canadian troops were given some of the most difficult tasks against the pick of the German army and were again successful. Their role in the future should be that of special troops.
Ttegarded as special troops, as superior fighting men, they should be given special training and special equipment. The minister and all Canadians are desirous that our commitments should not exceed our capabilities, that our manpower should be carefully husbanded and not carelessly frittered away. It is well known that quality is more important than numbers in warfare, and that a few thousand highly-trained, well-armed and well-led men can overcome many thousands of inferior troops. You need only recall the success of Wavell in North Africa against the Italians, who outnumbered his forces seven to one, or the success of the German drive through Belgium and France in May, 1940. One hundred thousand German troops, highly disciplined, well-trained and thoroughly mobile, destroyed the fighting power of France whose armed forces were in the millions. Superior training, superior weapons and superior vehicles under skilful leadership will often ensure victory.
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Now what disturbs me-and this is the reason I have decided to speak at this time- is that Canada seems already to have forgotten one of the lessons learned by hard experience in the last war. That was the lesson that infantry cannot advance against modern fire power without sustaining extremely heavy casualties unless they are carried forward to their objective in armoured vehicles. That lesson should have been learned in the first war. It was finally learned during the second. In the fighting from the Normandy beaches to and beyond the city of Caen the casualties suffered by the Canadian infantry were on the scale of those suffered in the first war, and for the same reason. The infantrymen were cut down in the orchards and wheat fields of Normandy by machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. The tanks time after time reached their objective but the infantry were unable to get forward to take over the position.
For the advance on Falaise the same problem presented itself. The armoured brigade led the way, the infantry were to follow. Lieutenant General Simonds conceived the idea of putting the infantry in armoured vehicles. For this purpose a number of armoured tracked artillery vehicles were prepared. The guns were taken out and the infantry occupied the vacant space. Protected by the heavy armour plating they were carried forward by these vehicles and for the first time after the landing on the beaches the infantry were given a fighting chance to survive. So successful was this initial experiment that the same vehicles were used for the attack on Boulogne and Calais. Subsequently the Canadian Ram tank with the turret and gun removed replaced these artillery vehicles. Eight infantrymen could be carried in these Rams. From September until May of the following year these armoured carriers, the adapted Ram tank, were used with the greatest success. Fifty-four battalions of infantry, Canadian and British, some of them on several occasions, were carried into battle right to the enemy's position. By this method surprise was achieved, the objective was reached by tanks and infantry at the same time, the infantry were not fatigued by long marches, and they were able to carry larger supplies of ammunition. Successful attacks were made in Holland, the Roer pocket was cleared, the Siegfried line was breached by carrier-borne infantry; the road to Calcar, the Hochwald forest, the town of Xanten, the advance into north eastern Holland and into Germany across the Rhine-in all these places the armoured carrier played its part. Hundreds upon hundreds of lives were saved, for the carriers were proof against machine gun

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and mortar fire. They were of course not proof against anti-tank shells, bazookas and mines.
This use of the armoured carrier was an outstanding advance in the tactical employment of infantry, and was a Canadian invention. The British adopted the idea; the Americans ignored it. Canada, the originator of the idea, has neglected to develop it. The use of the tracked armoured carrier was not fully developed in northwest Europe. Much was left undone in the matter of wireless control, in its use for small operations, and in providing the carrier with heavier machine guns and with smoke dischargers. I am informed that at Camp Borden some attention is being paid to the armoured carrier but no regular unit has been authorized, and I doubt very much if any extensive training along this line has been incorporated in the army program.
The importance of all this is that we have now reached the stage when we are developing larger forces than were anticipated a few years ago. We are dispatching an infantry brigade to Europe. We have been told that we may have years of uncertainty ahead of us during which we should be constantly prepared. I am suggesting that our preparations should include much greater concern for the infantry. Unless modes of warfare are radically altered by atomic weapons, there will still remain the necessity of getting infantry to the position that must be occupied. If, to reach that objective, the infantry have to advance through enemy fire the only reasonable modern method, other than by air, is by armoured carrier. A complete misconception of the modern employment of infantry has been conveyed by the innumerable pictures that have been shown of infantry riding into battle on top of tanks or walking in extended order behind tanks, a suicide patrol and quite contrary to the actual facts of the battlefield. The infantryman should never again be called upon to use that method except where the terrain is unsuitable for tracked carriers.
I suggest to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) that Canadian forces for overseas service in Europe should be mobile striking forces; that they should be equipped with tracked vehicles so that tanks, artillery, engineers and infantry can all move together across country with adequate protection against the smaller weapons. I suggest that a specialized force of this nature under present conditions of warfare would be more useful and less costly in manpower. It may be more expensive in terms of money, but of greater consideration is the effective offensive power that such a force would have and

the greater protection that would be afforded to that much neglected branch of the service, the infantry.
New ideas in warfare are sometimes accepted only after very great delays. The tank, which was evolved during the first war, was looked upon with suspicion and disapproval at first, was used under improper conditions and was not given an opportunity for full and proper utilization until Cambrai in 1917 and Amiens in 1918. It proved the decisive factor in the closing months of the war. Between the wars the tank was neglected. Despite the writings of Liddell Hart and Generals Fuller, Martel and Hobart in England, and despite the enthusiasm of General Worthington in Canada, we entered upon the second war almost totally unprepared for armoured conflict. Not so the Germans. Guderian and Rommel had learned the lessons of the past and applied them with the greatest success.
So now, six years after the conclusion of the second world war, Canadians are neglecting the very method they originated and brought to a high state of perfection in the fighting in northwestern Europe. The writings of Fuller and Liddell Hart are again being ignored by us but not by the Russians. History shows that too often preparations have been made to fight the next war on methods proven inadequate in the former war.
In December last year a military correspondent writing in Saturday Night concerning Korea stated that experiments were being tried there with regard to armoured carriers for infantry. There is no need at this stage for such experiments. Completely successful performance was achieved in northwestern Europe by the Canadians in 1944 and 1945. That method of handling infantry should have been incorporated in Canadian army training these last six years and the experiments should have been along the lines of more expert development of the new method.
I do not wish to go into too many technical details but I want to make it clear that I am not referring to army service corps lorries to carry infantry, nor to Bren gun carriers with their narrow tracks, nor to half-track vehicles such as were used by the motor battalions, but to a fully tracked armoured vehicle capable of cross country movement under bad weather conditions, a vehicle that carries offensive weapons so that it is a fighting vehicle as well as a carrier. The end result is the saving of the lives of infantrymen, engineers and artillery forward observation officers. Canada cannot plan in terms of mass armies on the United States and continental patterns. We have superior

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fighting men, we are masters of the machine, we have the necessary experience but our manpower is limited. Our contribution to the NATO forces in Europe should be a specialized hard hitting fighting force capable of cross country movement, designed to provide the most efficient offensive and defensive power, but carefully calculated to protect the lives of the fighting men. The armoured carrier, under present conditions of warfare, is a necessity for the infantry.
Mr. J. W. Nose worthy (York South): Mr. Speaker, if we may bring back the debate to the resolution before us, I should like to speak for a few moments on that subject. First of all I want to express my appreciation of the assurance that was given to the house early yesterday afternoon by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) concerning the Kurt Meyer affair. Over the week end I was approached by a group of veterans from my riding who were very much alarmed at the prospect of this man having been spirited away to Germany with the consent of the Canadian government for the express purpose of reorganizing the German army.
The veterans, I found, did not take very kindly to the suggestion that this man should be given an opportunity to do just that. The assurance of the minister yesterday, that it would be impossible for him to take his place in the army being formed in western Germany because he is still serving a sentence of life imprisonment imposed by the courts, and the further assurance by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) that he cannot be released without the express authority of the government of Canada, will find favour with those who were disturbed over this situation. Let me say to the ministers that while Kurt Meyer has been removed to Germany, undoubtedly great pressure will be placed upon the Canadian government to release him; and while it might be easier for him to assume a position of leadership in a reformed German army, any section of the Canadian public that I know will look with disfavour upon the granting of any such release by the Canadian government.
The matter of the rearming of western Germany has already been discussed. The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) has pointed out the need for a closer relationship and association of western Germany with the nations of the free world. I think all hon. members will agree that if the Canadian boys we are about to send to Germany are likely to be called upon to defend any part of Europe, with the
possible inclusion of Germany, then it is only reasonable that the Germans themselves should participate in that defence. I told a delegation which came to see me yesterday to protest against the rearming of Germany that the thing which struck me with some force is that most people today who are squawking about the rearming of western Germany have never raised any protest against the rearming of eastern Germany, which has been proceeding for some time.
I am sure the minister, and the government, will have the support of the house in the resolution before us. As reported at page 247 of Hansard, the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) pointed out to us what he considered to be the key words of the resolution, when he said:
I might emphasize that the key word in the motion is "continuation," continuation toward achievement of our consistent objective, the establishment of international peace.
In referring to the part we are called upon to play with our North Atlantic treaty allies, he said:
These Canadian forces will take their place in an international formation designed as a deterrent to aggression, a safeguard of peace in the whole north Atlantic area and a guarantee of the security of Canada itself.
And he stated that he hoped there would be unanimous support of the efforts our country is making to help maintain peace and security in the world.
I think it is well that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs emphasized many times in their speeches on this subject that the forces being built today by the free nations of the world are being built as a deterrent to aggression and to maintain peace. The minister spoke about the efforts being made by the communists in connection with phony peace proposals. He pointed out that we must be on our guard, and that the danger lies not only in a military attack but that it might take other forms. I am sure we will agree with the minister in that respect.
I was however somewhat disturbed by one statement the minister made, when he referred to the fact that by the end of 1954 we may have reached a point in our rearming when we may be able to ease off a bit, and pass from a sprint in the rearmament race to what he described as a marathon. I wish merely to point out that while the minister made it quite clear that he does not believe in the inevitability of war, he did not make it clear that he believed it may be possible for us to reach some agreement which may ease the burden of rearmament and defence for many years to come. He told us it may well be that by now the Soviet

United Nations and NATO union has learned that our resources are so great and our defence forces becoming so strong that it may not pay them to attack the free nations in open warfare, and that the enemy's attack may take other forms.
While we do not believe in the inevitability of war, neither do I think we should believe in the inevitability of our having to continue for many years to take part in a rearmament race such as that in which we are now engaged. I will go along with the minister to this extent that so long as that is shown to be necessary, so long as we know that is the only logical course to follow, then that is the only course we must follow. If the U.S.S.R. and the communist bloc continue to persist, as they did before Korea, in refusing to come to any agreement with the members of the United Nations on the subject of disarmament or the matter of international inspection, then by all means we must maintain amongst the free nations of the world a military force that will be capable of defending us against an attack at any time. We must hope that such a military force will be a deterrent against any such attack.
I suggest to the minister that there are many people in Canada today who are not communists, who have no more love for the communists than he has, who are very much concerned about the prospect of having to continue spending vast sums of money, using our manpower for defence purposes, and at the same time reducing our own standard of living. They are seriously wondering whether the great nations, including soviet Russia, will not sometime in the near future come to their senses to the extent that we may be able to call a halt to this armament race. I merely want to suggest to the minister that, notwithstanding the failures of the past, just as the military leaders in Korea today are being patient and persistent in their attempts to bring about a cease fire and while they have been prepared to put up with many trials and tribulations and must often have felt like throwing up their hands and forgetting about a cease fire, so we should take much the same attitude regarding the possibility of the great powers coming to some agreement on disarmament without jeopardizing our security.
The minister tells us that he is about to leave for Europe. He will be participating in these international conferences, as well as in the negotiations of the general assembly. I simply ask him to keep his mind and his eyes open for any possible chance there may be for reaching such agreement. I believe the initiative in that matter might well come from our Secretary of State for External


Affairs (Mr. Pearson), whose prestige at the United Nations and many other assemblies such as NATO is very high. He is regarded as exemplifying those very qualities which, in his speech yesterday, he said we must observe in our discussions of foreign affairs. We must not give the Canadian people the impression that we accept this armament race as inevitable for the next five or ten years. We must be ready, not to sacrifice our security but to sit down and negotiate an agreement whereby not only we but the other countries in the world may be able to find some relief from the burden of armaments. I am quite confident that the minister is in sympathy with this line of action. I am quite sure that prior to Korea, like many members of the United Nations, we were ready and anxious to find some solution to this problem. These members were frustrated by Russia and the communist bloc. I am sure they are still anxious and willing to help to bring to Canada and the world any relief that an equitable and properly safeguarded agreement may bring.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: One
hesitates somewhat, Mr. Speaker, to intervene even for a short time in a debate which has become so one-sided. I am sure it must be very flattering to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) that he is regarded by all members of the Liberal party as the compendium of all wisdom and knowledge on external affairs, so that nothing needs to be added. We too, though not perhaps with quite the same enthusiasm, are quite ready to praise his work whenever we have the chance to do so.
I should like to ask a few questions. I noticed the minister said he was going to take us on what he called a tour d'horizon. I have asked some of those in this chamber who understand the French language better than I how to translate that, and they have advised me not to try to translate it. If I understand it correctly, I suppose it means to take a general look around the horizon and view things in a general way. It is quite proper to do that, but it may possibly mean that occasionally you do not see some of the things that are in the foreground, and some of those may have a certain amount of importance, too.
There was one matter which I felt sorry the minister dealt with lightly; indeed I am not sure he dealt with it at all. It is a question which I believe is of vast importance to us; that is the present position of Japan. I suppose that, according as Japan becomes strong or remains weak, according as she makes common cause with us or against us,

according as she is able or unable to withstand Russia, what happens to Japan in the next few years may be of more importance than any other single thing in the world. I was a little bit disappointed that the minister did not say more about it. I propose to make one or two observations based to some considerable extent on some interesting articles I ran across in the Manchester Guardian written by a journalist named Robert Guillain who corresponds with the Manchester Guardian and also with he Monde. I take it from the fact that his writings appear in the Manchester Guardian and also from inquiries that I have made that he is a man of some standing. He writes an article on September 20, and I propose to deal with it briefly. He goes to the root of the whole question of how Japan is to rearm. He quotes the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Yoshida, as saying:
It is financially impossible: one single torpedo-boat would torpedo the Japanese finances. It is politically impossible: the Australians, the Filipinos, and others could not agree to it. and we have no desire to set their nerves uselessly on edge. As for the Japanese themselves, there is not a family in the country that is not suffering to this day from the results of defeat. Everywhere are ruins, everywhere mourners. I cannot go to those families and say "Your son is to be a soldier again."
I am not suggesting that the writer of this article undertakes to say that that is the last word. In fact, I think he feels far differently. But when the minister speaks later, as he no doubt will, with the knowledge and information available to him I hope he may undertake to say something about this matter.
I should also like to read from another article which pictured, with a vividness that I at any rate had not been aware of, the extraordinary position in which Japan finds herself and the extraordinary way in which the Russians pressed down on her, quite beyond the intent of the Yalta agreement. Nevertheless they are there. I will read a few sentences from the report of Mr. Guillain in the Manchester Guardian of Tuesday, September 4. He writes from the north island of Japan and he says this:
Less than two miles across the blue sea from the Japanese cape on which I am standing is a long rocky islet with a lighthouse on it. The lighthouse and the islet belong to the Russians. To the west, hidden today by the sea mist, is a wide bay. In that Japanese bay there is a large island. On that island are the Russians.
He goes on later to say:
This is at the extreme northeast tip of Japan: Cape Nosap, on Hokkaido, the great northern island. On this promontory at the end of the world, eaten away by tempests from the north, I have on my right the Pacific ocean, and on my left the sea of Okhotsk. It was an exhausting journey to get here -by aeroplane, by train, by lorry on a frightful track, and finally on foot. But the visit was worth
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it. The tiny silhouette of the Russian sentry, caught in the circle of the binoculars, tells more than a long study of the position of postwar Japan. Eighty-five millions of Japanese feel the weight of that Russian sentry when they think of the north.
Then he goes on and speaks about the way the Russians came in just in 1945, with no right to do so. But after Yalta they pressed down. The article continues:
When small Soviet units landed there at the beginning of September, 1945, the first thing they did was to ask the inhabitants: "Are the Americans here?" The Americans were not there, although three weeks had already passed since the Japanese capitulation. And the Russians pushed on to the next island, where they put the same question.
And so on. Then he gives a short description of what the cold war means there. He says: The cold war? It is here . . . The invisible iron curtain passes a mile away from this promontory, making life impossible for all this region, which lives by fishery. As soon as a Japanese boat loses its way in fog or at night, and passes that limit, it is seized by Soviet patrols. More than a hundred barques have been seized since 1945. Since the beginning of this year nine boats out of ten have not been returned and their crews have not come back; in the past they were sent back to Japan.
I read this to the house, Mr. Speaker, just because I thought others might be as interested as I have been to realize the immediate and pressing nature of this danger to Japan which is now, after years, beginning to take stock of her position and see what she is going to be able to do for herself. In this connection it is interesting to say just a word about her .trade. To quote again from the Manchester Guardian and the same writer, he says:
The closing of the Chinese market which has, since the beginning of this year, and because of the Korean war, been virtually complete is almost a catastrophe for Japan. It compels her, for example, to replace the coking coal of Manchuria by distant purchases in America or India . . . Official quarters are convinced that when the peace treaty has given Japan her sovereignty back and when the Korean affair has been settled the lifeline of trade with China must be relaid . . . The Nippon Times reported that Red China recently asked Tokyo to supply it with tools and cotton goods in exchange for raw materials . . .
And so on. There you have it that in all probability we shall soon have Japan and China trading again.
I want to say just a word on another matter; that is the Pacific pact. I do not think the minister's treatment of that matter was satisfactory. As someone else has said, I thought he treated it in a rather jocular and flippant way; and I doubt if it can be brushed off in that way. I think I understand the immediate reason for the pact with Australia and New Zealand because, of course, they are terrified of Japanese rearmament. They are not, like us, on the same continent with the

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United States. I should like to refer particularly to one phrase used by the minister yesterday when he said, as reported at page 257 of Hansard:
. . . there is another reason against extending that tripartite arrangement at this time. The addition of one country may lead to requests from other countries to join that arrangement, and I believe that is not desired at this time by the three countries concerned.
I have seen it suggested, and I propose to say just a word about it before I sit down, that one of the weaknesses of the pact as it stands at the moment-that is, as between the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines, and particularly Australia and New Zealand-is that it can be represented and misrepresented as another imperialistic pact. I want to suggest also, and I shall quote from an apparent authority on this subject, that to make a pact which excludes all hope of any Asian nation being included in it is something which is going to cause misunderstanding on that continent.
I want to read an extract from the minister himself in an article which he wrote for Foreign Affairs of October, 1951. He said this, and I find it interesting, speaking of the commonwealth:
In a world so plagued by divisions and misunderstandings as ours, it is no small advantage, I think, that Asian and western leaders should be able to sit down together in commonwealth meetings in an atmosphere of intimacy and complete equality.
That is a quotation from the minister. He makes the point-and a very good one, I think-that one of the strengths of the commonwealth is that it has enabled Asian and western leaders to sit down together. Later on in the same article, after he has spoken, and quite properly so, of the need for giving economic assistance to eastern nations, he says this:
In honesty it must also be added, however, that economic help from abroad will have little effect if political animosities between Asian countries prevent them from making the best use of their own resources in the work of economic development.
I now wish to turn for a moment to a short statement made by a man whose name I did not know until today but who at any rate is a respectable enough person to have his writings printed by Foreign Affairs. He is apparently a Korean. His name in Ben C. Limb, permanent representative of Korea to the United Nations. He has some things to say, and I quote them not because I know that he has any special authority to speak but because it seems to me that they have a certain reasonableness in them; at least, I hope they have some reasonableness in them. If they have not, it is just too bad for us all.
The most farsighted and efficient method of achieving stability in the Far East would be the early initiation and conclusion of a comprehensive Pacific

pact patterned broadly along the lines of the Atlantic pact though not restricted to a particular number of signatories.
Again he says:
A clear-cut pattern for a strong and homogenous regional organization does not appear to be emerging at this time from such a combination of assurances, bilateral arrangements, and a narrowly limited pact. It may well be that the major purpose of the proposed Pacific pact is to facilitate the rapid conclusion of a Japanese peace treaty by formally assuring Australia and New Zealand that the United States is prepared to defend them.
And again:
As the pact proposed by Ambassador Dulles stands now-even with the possible formal inclusion of the Philippines and Japan-it consists only of the Pacific island nations and the United States. It contains no Asiatic mainland countries, and overlooks Canada as a Pacific power. It has been asserted that this pact should logically include only "nations in the Pacific ocean and the United States because if it went beyond that it would then become an Asia pact." If the Atlantic pact had been organized along a similar basis, it would only include the United States, Great Britain and Iceland.
I am not suggesting that the situation with regard to Asian nations is at all the same as it is with regard to western Europeans. I realize that there is a very great difference but on the other hand it seems to me we should remember that while NATO is merely something we are organizing in the hope that some day it may do something, in the east, in Korea, there has already been united action. It is true that it has been united action almost wholly by the European nations which have gone to the other end of the world to maintain collective security, and we are all proud and happy that they should do so. But I just wish to add that the fact that this has happened, that we have in Korea a situation where we are defending freedom in Asia, makes it seem a pity if we are unable to have some kind of emerging organization which supports and maintains that idea. I just wish to repeat that to me at any rate the words I read a moment or two ago have a good deal to be said for them; that is to say, that we are including only the island countries and the United States. Then the writer goes on to say:
If such is the case then the proposed pact is unfortunately being orientated toward past events and situations rather than toward the future.
The pact he refers to there is the pact between the United States, Australia and New Zealand, which has since become a fact. These are the points that I wish to raise. I am thoroughly of the view that the answer the minister has given us so far with regard to the Pacific pact is very flimsy and unconvincing. Perhaps he can make it more convincing. Furthermore, it seems to me that

we are not addressing our minds to the tremendous potentialities for good or evil-that is not strong enough-the perhaps decisive potentialities for good or evil in what is going to happen in Japan in the years ahead of us. It seems to me that in failing to instruct us in that he was not fully earning that blind confidence which he has from his followers, which we all admire though we cannot imitate.


Mr. L. T. Slick (Trinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) has thrown out the challenge to this side of the house, and I do not mind taking it up. Foreign affairs are a concern of this whole nation, not a concern of just one party in this house.
On many occasions here I have emphasized the importance of the understanding of the eastern mind. Sometimes I think the words I have used have been over the heads of most hon. members. I have emphasized that you cannot settle the question of the east by western methods. I say that again today. It has been tried time and time again, and the situation in the east today is far worse than it was a year ago. As a matter of fact it is in an explosive stage which may easily start a third world war.
To illustrate my point as to our misunderstanding of the eastern mind and the eastern way of life I am going to quote from a speech by the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) for whom I have the greatest regard. He said yesterday in this house, as reported at page 260 of Hansard:
We cannot solve those problems while there are In the Orient people who, because of their underprivileged condition, look upon us as the people who live in the large, fashionable house on the hill, while they live in the rough-cast cottage across the tracks. That is just about as simple a way as I can describe what I have noted has been in some oriental minds, the differentiation between the position in the east and the position in the west.
There is nothing wrong with that statement from the western standpoint; it is the way the west looks at the east. The point is, they have no cottages in the east to live in. Tens of millions of them live in mud huts, and some of them do not even live in those. If that is our conception of the east, then we have to wake up as the east is awakening now. You have today in the east the awakening of Islam. Let me tell you here that Islam is a fighting faith, and always has been. Islam is on fire today from Pakistan to Morocco. What we do about it in the west may well be the beginning of trouble which may end in a third world war. There are fanatics in this world. There are Mohammedan fanatics, and nowhere will you find that more exemplified than on the northwest frontier of India,
United Nations and NATO where the Prime Minister of Pakistan was assassinated a while ago. It took place in a city called Rawalpindi, which is the gateway to the northwest frontier, and also one of the gateways to Kashmir. Liaquat Ali Khan knew he was taking a chance when he spoke at Rawalpindi. They are very fanatical people; they are very good fighters. It was not surprising to me when I heard that he had been assassinated, and learned that he was speaking in Rawalpindi. That is the explosive stage of the relations between India and Pakistan.
I said here two years ago that you would not settle the Kashmir dispute by western methods, and it is not settled yet. As a matter of fact the conditions for settlement are worse today than they were two years ago, yet we have Mr. Nehru and others telling us what we in the west should do. Relations between India and Pakistan are not good. They are in the explosive stage, and anything can happen at any time. I think the situation in Iran is even worse. At the present moment we are denied the use of that oil. It has been said the oil that we get there constitutes 40 per cent of our fighting potential. The oil is no good to Russia; she cannot use it, but she can deny us the use of it, and that is the situation in Persia today.
Now we have this explosive stage in Egypt, and God knows where it will spread from there. It is time that we in the west woke up to the fact that the east is on the march. Certainly Islam is. Unless we know how to deal with the situation, so much the worse for us and our international relations.
We had the spectacle of Persia bringing her dispute to the United Nations and absolutely nothing being done. If that is the way the United Nations is going to carry on then our policy of collective security through the United Nations would seem to be based on the flimsiest of grounds. Let us be realistic about this business. This is not child's play. We are in a fight for the very freedom which you and I possess. It may be a fight for our very lives. We in this country have to wake up to the fact that we are in a war. Call it a cold war or a hot war, we are in a fight and we have responsibilities. Unless the people of this country wake up to their responsibilities the whole edifice of peace for which we are all striving may tumble about our ears. Some people do not like the idea of power politics, but we are playing power politics whether we like it or not. Russia is playing power politics, and if we are to meet strength with strength we must match that policy. I should like to quote an article I read a few days ago, which illustrates my

United Nations and NATO point perhaps better than I can express it. The October 1951 issue of the National and English Review has this to say:
No sane person . . . would recklessly start a world war, with or without the support of Britain's allies. Nor can any sane person pretend that general peace can be preserved in existing world conditions, unless the free nations are prepared to defend their legitimate interests wherever these are threatened -and to defend them by more than words.
For instance, . . . the British government should have stated from the first that it would not tolerate either the illegal expropriation of British interests, or the unwarrantable victimization of British subjects, in Persia. This would have been no idle bluster. It would almost certainly have called the Persian government's bluff, and so have saved not only the enormous British investment in Persian oil, but also the Persian people themselves from the the destitution and slavery by which they are now so likely to be overwhelmed. Moreover, a firm British stand, combined wtih strong representations at the highest level in Washington, could surely have won us the support of the United States- especially after the Hague court had given its interim verdict in our favour.
The article goes on to state that the Persian situation demonstrates the futility of seeking peace at any price, and then continues :
Such a policy, indeed, has always been and will always be self-defeating. Peace can only be achieved and maintained in this wicked world if the more civilized nations are strong, and are not afraid to assert themselves in case of real necessity. Obviously the sanction of force must be reserved for the most serious issues, and must not be used, even in the form of a threat, unless the rights and wrongs of an issue are manifest to all fair-minded people, and unless diplomacy is unable to reach a solution without it. On the other hand, it must not be held in suspense for too long, or diplomacy will have no chance to succeed and irreparable harm will be done.
Irreparable harm has been done already. The peace of the world is at stake today. Our policy should be peace through strength and not the mere giving of lip service. We must know how to use our strength, and when to use it, if we are to preserve the peace of the world. I have made these observations because I am greatly concerned with the situation as it is today. To my mind we are heading for a third world war whether we like it or not. If we do not wake up to the fact that we are heading that way and take action to stop it, then we shall have it. I do not want war. I have seen enough of it. I think I have seen as much as anybody here. But I do not want peace at any price, neither do I want peace without freedom or peace without honour. You cannot have peace without union. We must unite with other democratic countries to maintain peace. When we speak we must be strong. We must speak with one united voice, otherwise we shall be speaking in vain. That is all I have to say on that matter.
The question of defence has come up in this debate and I should like to say a few words. We have a brigade fighting in Korea and

now we have sanctioned a brigade for Europe. I am totally in accord with that decision, but from a military point of view it is not so good. We are extending our lines of communication from Korea to Europe. If we ever get into a shooting war we shall be fighting on two fronts about ten thousand miles apart. From a military or strategic point of view that is not so good. However, we are committed to that and we shall have to see it out. If we do so it will call for the united strength of this country and for sacrifices by each and every one of us. I should like the Canadian people to know that is what they must face when we take these obligations upon ourselves.
I said a year ago that if there was any choice between the three services, I preferred to concentrate on the air force. I should like to amplify that statement just a bit. The situation in the Atlantic is not good. The submarine menace is still there, and it is serious. I should like to see this country build up its transport air force so that in case of trouble we would be able to supply at least some of the needs of our troops in Europe. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton) will probably assure me that this will be taken care of by the United States air force. That is all to the good, but if we ever get into a shooting war the United States air force will have its hands full. I should like to be assured that we have built up our transport air service to such a point that it can meet any eventuality.
Finally I want to say that, as we cannot have peace without unity, this country must be united as never before. I have said that before, and I meant it; I mean it more today than ever. We are here as representatives, individually and collectively, of the Canadian people. You might call this House of Commons the Canadian family. If we are to be successful in this fight for freedom, for democracy, for justice, for our way of life, we must take as our slogan: One family, one country, one nation-Canada.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, a number of questions have been addressed to me in the course of this discussion but I have no right to reply to them except with the unanimous consent of the house because the resolution was moved by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent).


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the wish of the house that the hon. member for Algoma East (Mr. Pearson) should close the debate?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member for Algoma East speaks now he will close the debate.


Mr. G. F. Higgins (Si. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask one question before the minister closes the debate. On May 1 the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) referred to a recommendation in respect to leased bases in Newfoundland. He made this statement, as recorded at page 2551 of Hansard for May 1, 1951:
The government will in due course be making to the house five legislative proposals flowing in whole or part from the recommendation.
The reason I think that is pertinent in this particular debate is that the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) said further on the same page:
When the time comes to examine the other four it will, I think, be agreed that, quite apart from the recommendation of the permanent joint board on defence, they are useful and possibly necessary measures to enable Canada to discharge obligations under the North Atlantic treaty.
There were five specific proposals outlined in the Prime Minister's remarks in the course of which he submitted his recommendation. I am not going to go into them at length. They were: first, income tax; second, customs and excise; third, postal privileges; fourth, jurisdiction in the courts, and the fifth was in connection with visiting forces. Arising out of the Prime Minister's announcement, I asked him a series of questions and he told me he would answer at a later date. I asked him on May 2 when I could get the answers and he said he was not prepared to answer at that time. Apparently no announcement has been made that any legislation is going to be introduced in connection with this recommendation. I would ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) what the position is with respect to this particular legislation. Is it going to be brought down at this session or is it going to be completely forgotten? What is the position?


Mr. R. R. Knight (Saskatoon):: I should like to refer the minister to a statement he made which is to be found at page 254 of Hansard for October 22. He said:
I know the house will be glad and proud to know that in the matter of relief of distress in Korea in recent months no country has made a greater contribution than Canada. Indeed I do not know whether any country has contributed as much as Canada.
That is the relevant part of the quotation. Since the minister appears to be about to close the debate and has expressed a willingness to answer questions put in the course of the debate, would he expand that particular statement and give the house some idea of the extent, form and method of the contributions? I should like him to tell us what
United Nations and NATO noticeable effect there has been in the lessening of the evils he has mentioned as a result of such contributions, if any such effect is yet noticeable.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker,-


Mr. Speaker:: If the minister speaks now he will close the debate.


Lester Bowles Pearson: A good many questions have been raised in the course of the debate, and I doubt if in the time at my disposal I will be able to deal with them all satisfactorily. However, I will try to answer to the best of my ability some of the more concrete questions which have been raised, though I am sure not in all cases to the satisfaction of all hon. members opposite.
If I may deal at once with the matter that has just been raised regarding the questions addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. Higgins), I would call his attention to resolution No. 8 on the order paper which will, I think, provide ample opportunity for a discussion in which these points will be dealt with, and I hope satisfactorily. It is intended to introduce legislation to approve the agreement between the parties to the North Atlantic treaty regarding the status of their forces when present in the territories of one another. In the consideration of that resolution and the bill which may be based on it, I think the points which the hon. member has raised will come up for discussion.
There have been several references during the debate to the desirability or otherwise of a Pacific pact, a matter which I tried to deal with yesterday though according to the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdon-nell) I did so in a flippant and jocular way. I do not know where he got that impression. I cannot recall being flippant in the debate yesterday about such a serious matter as a Pacific pact. Flippancy is a rather gentle accusation which he is inclined to throw at us when he does not approve of what we say. I am not as much impressed by the suggestion of flippancy on this occasion as I might be because in the course of his very interesting remarks he also said I might have dealt at greater length with the Japanese peace treaty. I do not know whether or not he was in the house at that time. I spoke for an hour and twenty minutes, and I spent almost as much time on the Japanese peace treaty as on any other single item that I tried to cover in that "tour d'horizon" which I mentioned yesterday. However, I will be glad to add to his store of knowledge on that subject when I come to it later, if that will be any satisfaction to him.

United Nations and NATO
To return to the Pacific pact, the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) brought it up. The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green) devoted a great deal of his speech to it, and I think the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Hees) referred to it as well. It may well be that what I said about a Pacific pact yesterday is not satisfactory to these hon. gentlemen, but I suggest that they may be labouring under some confusion of mind on this matter, and may not have adequately distinguished in their own minds between a general Pacific pact and the treaty of mutual assistance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America, a distinction which I think should be observed and which is certainly observed in the minds of the signatories of the latter treaty.
Yesterday the hon. member for Peel, in his very interesting and constructive speech, took mild and courteous objection to the way we were approaching the subject of a Pacific pact by bits and pieces. I think he called it the bits and pieces method. He thought that now we had signed the peace treaty with Japan, the way was open for a broader approach to what he called a master pact for the Pacific area, what would be in fact a Pacific pact. A Pacific pact of that kind would indeed be, or might be, a security arrangement very much like that which we have for the north Atlantic area; and it would, I assume, involve the same kind of obligations that we now accept as necessary and desirable in the north Atlantic area.
When you begin to contemplate the possibility of a Pacific pact of that kind you run up at once against the fact that those countries most concerned with general security in the Pacific do not think the time is ripe for it. If the United States of America and the United Kingdom do not feel that it is possible to work out that kind of Pacific pact in the present circumstances, is it desirable, is it appropriate that we should take the initiative in trying to make them change their minds? As I tried to say yesterday, if the United States had felt that a Pacific pact of that type was desirable in the present circumstances for the security of the Pacific they would not have made separate pacts with the republic of the Philippines and with the two dominions, Australia and New Zealand. I have no doubt in my own mind-and I have discussed it more than once with representatives of these governments, because we take this question of a Pacific pact seriously -that one reason they think it undesirable under present circumstances to initiate discussions for a pact of that nature is that they would at once be faced with the question that I asked yesterday: what countries would

be included and what countries would be left out. There are certain countries in the Pacific area at the present time which would certainly expect to be included in a general Pacific treaty of that nature; and in the minds of certain governments it would not be conducive to general security in the Pacific to include those governments at this time in any such policy. That is the reason we have not taken any leadership in regard to the development of such a Pacific pact. But we have discussed this matter on more than one occasion with governments concerned.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green) also asked this afternoon: why do you not join the tripartite security arrangement which has been worked out by the United States, Australia and New Zealand?
The answer to that-and this is an arrangement for security in the south Pacific, not a Pacific pact-is the one I gave yesterday, which apparently was not convincing to some hon. members opposite. It was that the extension of that particular pact by the addition of one more member at this time might lead to its extension in other directions which I feel sure all the members of the tripartite group do not desire at this time.
I cannot be any more frank; I cannot be any more candid than that. But I can assure hon. members that we are continuously discussing this question of Pacific security with the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In the course of time as the situation in the Pacific develops and becomes more stabilized, we hope it may be possible to use this tripartite agreement, as indeed was indicated by the President of the United States, as a basis on which a general Pacific security arrangement might be worked out.
Another reason I think it may not be desirable at the present time to extend that tripartite arrangement is the situation in regard to Japan itself. Japan has now reached the transitional stage between occupation and independence; and until that stage has been completed it is not easy to see how Japan itself could be integrated into a Pacific security organization of any kind; certainly not until the peace treaty is ratified. That is not likely to take place for some months.
So I ask hon. members opposite who may criticize the government in this respect to accept our assurance that we are interested in the Pacific, that we are interested in developing security in the Pacific, and that if the situation in the future makes desirable our accession to some tripartite arrangement, which is not a Pacific pact, or makes it desirable that we should be included in the discussions of such a security pact, we will

not be more hesitant in playing our part in that development than we have been in playing our part in the development of the North Atlantic treaty.
The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker)-and this was referred to by other speakers-brought up again the question of the Japanese treaty and what was our attitude toward not only the treaty itself- because that has been made public-but in the negotiations leading up to the treaty. The leader of the C.C.F., the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), asked me if I would indicate wh'at views we expressed to the government which initiated the discussions, that of the United States, on the points as they were submitted to us.
That is a very difficult thing to do. I would point out that the procedure adopted in the announcement of the treaty was very unusual. It would have been a lot better in our minds, and in the minds of other governments, if we could have followed the traditional procedure of negotiating around a conference table. It might have taken longer-we were only a week at San Francisco-but we would have worked out a treaty which would, I hope, have commanded the support of the vast majority of governments. But that could not be done in the case of the Japanese treaty; and the reason it could not be done is pretty obvious. A conference of that kind would have had to include all members of the Far Eastern commission, including the U.S.S.R. Or, as the U.S.S.R. desired, it could have been negotiated through the council of foreign ministers, which would have given the U.S.S.R. the veto, as indeed it would have had the veto in any conference called under the aegis of the Far Eastern commission.
A treaty negotiated at a conference of that kind would be either a treaty agreed to 100 per cent by the U.S.S.R. or there would not be any treaty at all. Surely we have learned that in the long drawn out and desultory discussions over the treaty with Austria, and the treaty with Germany. That procedure would have resulted in indefinite delay. As most of us were agreed that we should bring to an end as soon as possible the state of war with Japan, the United States government, with the approval of other governments, decided to initiate discussions at the diplomatic level to get the views of the governments concerned, so we could reach the greatest possible measure of agreement. Having reached that, the draft was signed. As I said yesterday, that took a long time; it lasted for more than eleven months. These discussions took place not only with the United States. We had a commonwealth meeting even before the United
United Nations and NATO States initiated these formal discussions. The commonwealth point of view was also discussed in London at the prime ministers' conference. As a result of all their discussions we agreed on what I think is not a perfect treaty, but which is a good treaty. During those discussions we put forward our own views, and on a good many occasions that point of view was not the same as that of the United States, or indeed of the United Kingdom. But nevertheless, we must not forget at this time that we have signed this treaty, that we will stand by this treaty; and I do not think it would be right to emphasize now the points of difference in negotiating it.
It is a good treaty. Possibly if all our points of view had been accepted, it might be a better one. But I doubt if it would be desirable and in the interests of good diplomacy that, once a treaty is signed, we should underline and emphasize any differences between the governments which signed it. I hope the hon. member for Lake Centre will be satisfied.


John George Diefenbaker: That is the second time the minister has referred to me. I have not been in this at all.


Mr. Knowles:: It was the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I apologize to both hon. members. The leader of the C.C.F. party also discussed our Korean policy. He was anxious to have more information in regard to our views respecting the armistice talks now going on. There again I think it is not appropriate for me, in the midst of very important diplomatic discussions, to explain our point of view in every detail in respect of controversial issues in a way which might hamper developments. But I can say we feel that these talks have been very well conducted and well handled by General Ridgway. We also have reason to know that General Ridgway, in the conduct of these negotiations, has taken great pains to let the governments which have forces in Korea know what he is doing, and why he is doing it. There are meetings in Washington every two or three days, sometimes more often than that, where reports come back from Korea and where discussions take place with the representatives of all the governments contributing forces to the Korean operation.
Yesterday it was mentioned that on the United Nations side we may be making a mistake by haggling over details. But we are accumulating some experience, Mr. Speaker, in negotiating with the communists. What may seem at times to be a minor detail may turn out to be much more than that if you give way on it. It is true that most of the UN governments not so long ago agreed that if
318	HOUSE OF
United Nations and NATO we could return to the status quo ante-aggression, from one point of view we would have achieved our objective, which was to defeat aggression. At the United Nations assembly last spring the Canadian delegation took that position generally. It is also true that in the present armistice talks the United Nations commander is now insisting that the cease fire line should be where the line of battle is.
There is no real inconsistency, as I understand it, between those two positions. The position we took last spring in regard to the armistice line was part of a general settlement of Korean questions; a cease fire line roughly on the 38th parallel with a zone on either side, to be followed by political discussions which would lead to a settlement of the political problems, to be followed by a discussion of other Asian problems. Unless we are sure that these cease fire negotiations are part of that larger scheme, it is probably not fair to hold the commander in the field to all the details which may have been appropriate last spring.
Our attitude towards what might be called an extension of the war was mentioned this afternoon by the member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Thomas). We have heard this argument many times, and it has some appeal. He seemed to feel that the United Nations forces in Korea are under some kind of unfair civilian restriction and that, as it is usually put, they are fighting with one arm tied behind their backs. The policy which has been adopted in this matter is the policy which has been approved, not only by foreign ministers and diplomats but by the military who are in charge of the conduct of operations there, the combined chiefs of staff and the unified command in Washington. I do not think I can do any better in explaining that position than to read to the house a statement made in Washington last June before the combined foreign affairs and defence committees of the United States senate by the Secretary of State, Mr. Acheson. He was asked a question about action which might or might not enlarge the war, and which might or might not bring the war to an end. His reply, which very accurately represents the position today as we see it was:
It is enough to say that it is the judgment of the President's military advisers that the proposed enlargement of our military action would not exercise a prompt and decisive effect in bringing the hostilities to an end. To this judgment there must be added a recognition of the grave risks and other disadvantages of this alternative course.


That alternative course was to take military action against the Chinese mainland, if that were necessary. Then Mr. Acheson went on to say:
Against the dubious advantages of spreading the war in an initially limited manner to the mainland of China, there must be measured the risk of a general war with China, the risk of Soviet intervention, and of world war III, as well as the probable effects upon the solidarity of the free world coalition.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the policy which has commended itself not only to the military authorities in Washington but to the governments which have forces in Korea at the present time.
While I am on the subject of Korea, I might deal with a question which was raised a few minutes ago, concerning relief. Yesterday I did say that in respect of relief in Korea no country had done more than Canada in the last year, and I believe I said I did not think any other country had done as much. What I meant was this. Under the United Nations relief plan for Korea contributions were requested from all members. At the present time the contribution which has actually been made by Canada exceeds that of any other country. When I say that I do not wish to suggest that much more is not being done in this field in Korea by the United States than by Canada. It is being done, however, as an adjunct to military operations, and is the type of relief with which we became familiar in Europe in 1945. I should have made that clear yesterday, because it would be unfair to the effort that the United States is making in this field if I gave the impression that they were not doing more 'than anybody else outside the United Nations. But under the United Nations resolution on Korean relief Canada has, as I said, exceeded any other country in its contributions. The United States has however authorized a very large-contribution which has not been appropriated as yet.


John George Diefenbaker: What are the dollar
figures?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I think we have contributed about $8 million.


John George Diefenbaker: And the United States?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Under military relief in Korea the United States has contributed very much more than that as part of its military appropriation. I am speaking from memory, but I think the United States has authorized an appropriation of something in the neighbourhood of $75 million or $100 million for U.N. relief. Of the funds which the relief agency now has at its disposal for Korea, a large part comes from Canada.

In the discussion yesterday, and indeed in the discussion today, the question of Germany was mentioned. The hon. member for Rose-town-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) asked if I could explain the attitude of this government in somewhat more detail than I did yesterday, especially towards proposals for the rearming of Germany. In respect of that matter we have followed with very great interest, as have other governments, the plans which are now under way for the development of a European army under some form of European as opposed to national civilian control. These discussions are very complicated. They are very difficult and) very important. They have been continuing now for about eight months. At first some of the governments, even the government of the United Kingdom itself, had some hesitation in respect of this development because it was felt that it might indefinitely postpone the building up of a North Atlantic integrated force. But most of these doubts and hesitations have been dispelled by the progress achieved during the last six months. So far as we are concerned, we think there are great possibilities in this development.
About the only main obstacles in the way of the successful conclusion of these discussions now is the size of the German contingent in this European army and the kind of supranational control which will be exercised over it by European governments. My own feeling is that this is a helpful development, and that it may be a great thing for European peace. If we can get Germans, Frenchmen, Belgians and Dutchmen all operating in the same European army, not under national but European control, it may be a long step forward towards ending that long feud between Gaul and Teuton. At the same time, a European force is not enough. This European army should, in its turn, become integrated-that is a word we seem to use a great deal these days-with the North Atlantic force. There should be no distinction of that kind between a European army on the one side and General Eisenhower's army on the other. It was suggested yesterday and repeated today that this government has been guilty of inconsistency, to say the least, in agreeing to the dispatch of troops to Europe in 1951 when we pulled our troops out of Europe, as it was said, in 1946. But I would suggest that there is no parallel between those two situations. The Canadian troops which left Germany in 1946 were occupation troops. The Canadian brigade which will be going to Germany shortly, I hope, is part of the North Atlantic integrated force and in that sense is not an occupation army at all. So the situation is not the same as it was five years ago.
United Nations and NATO
A question was asked by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Pearkes), I think last night, and this is a question which possibly should be dealt with by my colleague the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Claxton). The hon. member asked whether this brigade, once it reaches Europe, would be able to serve, I think he said, in the Middle East, in Turkey, or whether it would be restricted in its operations, under the order in council, to Germany or at least to the mainland of western Europe. I think the answer is quite simple. Under the order in council the Canadian brigade could only be used in the integrated force under General Eisenhower. Within that limitation I suppose the force could be used under General Eisenhower's orders, and the men could be moved from Germany to Holland, to France or to any other area which comes under General Eisenhower's command.
But the question whether this would include the Middle East or Turkey or Greece is now entirely hypothetical, because those two countries are not yet members of the North Atlantic pact and it will be some months before all the formalities are completed in order to make it possible for them to become members. Even if Turkey and Greece join the North Atlantic pact, as I hope they will, military command discussions are going on now and it certainly would be unwise for me to anticipate the results- General Eisenhower's command might not extend over that area at all. Therefore until all these questions are worked out it is not possible to give a final answer to this question asked by the hon. gentleman; but it is certainly possible to give a specific answer now. That answer would be no, they could not be used in that other part of the world. I have no doubt in my own mind that if the situation changes and it is desired at some future date to extend the limits within which this brigade might operate, that will be done after this House of Commons has been given an opportunity to approve or disapprove that course.
I feel that I cannot sit down, Mr. Speaker, without attempting to deal with some of the observations that have been made by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green), and echoed in milder terms by one or two other hon. gentlemen, with regard to the commonwealth of nations. He suggested that yesterday, in my discussion of this particular subject, I set up some straw men so that I could knock them down. I still do not feel that way about it, and I doubt whether that suggestion is valid in view of what he himself said a few days previously.

United Nations and NATO To justify what I said yesterday I should like to read to the house the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra on this subject, on October 18, as reported at page 192 of Hansard. He said:
If the commonwealth were a third world power It would be an influence for peace. I think the people of the nations of the commonwealth are more peace-minded than our neighbours to the south. That is because of our geographical situation. I do not blame the people of the United States a bit for their attitude but the fact is-and everyone here knows it-that the people of the commonwealth are more peace-minded than either the people of the United States or the people of Russia. Perhaps if we had a strong commonwealth again we could give a lead in the settlement of these disputes. We are not in a position to do so now because of the weakness of the various nation members of the commonwealth who are all more or less camp followers in the United States camp.
If I understand what he meant by that- and I hope I do-it is that the commonwealth of nations should somehow build itself up into a political organization which would be apart from what he called the two existing blocs, being the U.S.S.R. and its satellites on the one hand and the United States of America on the other. When I talk, as I often have, about the world being divided into two camps and into two blocs, I do not suggest by this that one bloc is the United States of America and that the other is the U.S.S.R. We have two blocs. We have the bloc of freedom and we have the bloc of slavery. In the bloc of freedom there is the United States of America and there are the nations of the commonwealth and other free states; and they are doing their best to oppose the other bloc. Even if it were possible, would it be desirable to detach from that bloc on the freedom side the nations of the commonwealth of nations and set them up in some way as a third bloc, or as it has been put forward more logically by other people as a sort of third neutralized bloc? I know that is not in the mind of the hon. gentleman at all. It is not in his mind that if we have this third commonwealth bloc, it should be neutral in the present struggle. But I suppose he somehow feels that we could have two blocs on the one side and one bloc on the other.
I prefer the present situation, where we are trying to work together within one free bloc, as a group of member states, including those belonging to our association in the commonwealth. At this time I do not think it would be wise to give the impression that the nations of the commonwealth in any way wish to divorce themselves from the United States of America in this struggle against the forces of Soviet imperialism. I hope I am not being unjust to the hon. gentleman, but that is how I interpret his thesis that we should rebuild the commonwealth of nations.

If we are to rebuild the commonwealth of nations, as I follow his argument, it would be in the direction of diplomatic unity so that we would speak with one voice; and I suppose from that it follows that we would eventually have one foreign policy. If that is not what he means, I do not see what a commonwealth bloc could accomplish. It seems to me that he himself gave me a good deal of evidence to support that conclusion when he criticized our dilatory tactics in respect of Egypt, the fact that we had done nothing in respect of Iran, that we were straddling the fence on those matters and indeed that we had not lined ourselves up already diplomatically with the United Kingdom against the Argentine republic over the Falkland islands. The moral to be drawn from that sort of policy, it seems to me, is that the commonwealth should have one voice, one diplomacy, one policy and one agency for carrying out that policy. I still think that, if we try to do anything like that, it is the quickest way to break up the commonwealth of nations.
Before I sit down there is one suggestion that I think I should deal with; in fact, it is more than a suggestion. It is a specific request made by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) yesterday, in his extremely interesting speech, as to what I mean when I talk so much about a community of nations. On this score he harbours some dark suspicions that either I am an agent of evil forces-I do not think he would consider that to be too strong an expression-or else I am being hoodwinked by them. To support that suspicion he read from a magazine called Freedom & Union, edited by Mr. Clarence Streit, who formerly worked for the New York Times. In that magazine Mr. Streit wrote about some meeting that took place at the North Atlantic council where we were discussing this question of the North Atlantic community, what we meant by it, andi what we could do to bring it about. The hon. member felt that Mr. Streit must have had some hidden sources of information to be able to write that. I assure him that there was nothing sinister in the discussion and there was nothing sinister in Mr. Streit's activities in connection with the discussion.
As I indicated yesterday, all our discussions at the North Atlantic council were secret. A good many of them could have been public, except that we would have taken much more time. But the secret discussions were often discussed outside the conference room. Indeed it became the habit of delegates to have press conferences with their own national journalists, telling them much that went on during the day. In writing these articles Mr. Streit had sources of information no more and no less than were available to

a great many other journalists there. There was nothing sinister about his activities, and I myself do not think there is anything sinister about our article 2 activities.
The hon. gentleman, made my flesh creep yesterday when he expounded in a very interesting way the doings of the Illuminati in Bavaria in the 18th or 19th century. I assure him that in any steps we are taking in the North Atlantic community we are not basing our policies on the Illuminati of Bavaria or on anything they may have believed in at that time; but in the light of his own views, it is interesting to note that Bavaria, at the time when these rather mad people were conducting their clandestine operations, was a sovereign state. Bavaria gave up its sovereignty shortly afterwards and became a province of the German empire. That, in our modern times, has been the general progression of political units, from smaller units to larger units. In the course of that development many smaller units have given up their sovereignty and got something much bigger and better. I am not suggesting that Bavaria did. In this case, she might have been better off if she had kept her sovereignty.
If we talk now about the North Atlantic community, it is not to sabotage the sovereignty of the Dominion of Canada, but it is to see how in this small interdependent world -because it is that-national units can work more closely together for their security and prosperity. In the work we are doing now in the NATO committee of five that is what we will be concerned with. But I can assure the hon. gentleman that there will be ample opportunity to discuss any report we may make in the committee before it becomes the policy of this government. I can assure him also that there is no desire on anybody's part to rush to hasty conclusion in respect of the implementation of article 2. When I say that I know I will discourage and in a sense disappoint other hon. gentleman opposite who think we are going too slowly.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You see, Mr. Speaker, the government finds itself in a comfortable place between two extremes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You mean sitting on the fence.


Lester Bowles Pearson: And finally, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for York South (Mr. Noseworthy) expressed some worry over rny suggestion that while we have been concerned-in the last year or so in developing our defence-I am talking about the north Atlantic nations as
United Nations and NATO a whole-by 1954 our chief concern in this respect may be over and we may have to settle down into a long marathon. The hon. member is worried over the dim and dismal prospect of an arms race for years and years extending into infinity; and he wonders whether, if we get into that position, we will lose sight of the purpose of our military strength, which is negotiation. Well, I can only speak for myself and to some extent I suppose for the government. We have never lost sight of the fact that the purpose of strength is to negotiate; that strength itself is not an end in itself but a means to an end, to peace through negotiation. If there is anything we can do in the years ahead to make it unnecessary for us to take part in an armaments marathon race I can assure the house that this government will be very glad to do it.
It is in that spirit that the Canadian delegation will go to the United Nations assembly and to the meeting of the North Atlantic pact in Rome in November, in the hope that by building up our strength we will be able more effectively to seize every opportunity to negotiate in such a way that that strength will never have to be used for war. But having said that, I would like to add again-I have said this before-that we are gaining experience in this difficult technique of negotiating with communists; and while we should be willing to negotiate on any issue at any time, we should negotiate with our eyes wide open. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I hope that any worry the hon. gentleman and other hon. members may have as to the ultimate end of our policy in regard to building up our strength in the North Atlantic pact will be lessened by this assurance on policy.
I do not think there are any other questions that I shall have time to deal with in winding up this discussion, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to say before I sit down that it is certainly an encouragement to those of us who are charged with the responsibility for foreign affairs to realize the underlying unity in this house on these basic issues. We have had a very excellent discussion on this resolution. There have been some policies which hon. gentlemen opposite have advocated and which we have not been able to accept. There have been some things done which they think we have done unwisely; but on the basic issues, on the principles that guide our policy in this country, we are united.
Motion (Mr. St. Laurent) agreed to.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
322	HOUSE OF
Railway Act AFTER RECESS
The house resumed at eight o'clock. RAILWAY ACT



IMPLEMENTING CERTAIN RECOMMENDATIONS OF ROYAL COMMISSION ON TRANSPORTATION


Lionel Chevrier: that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Railway Act to carry out certain recommendations contained in the report of the royal commission on transportation and inter alia to provide that the cost of maintaining the trackage between Sudbury and Fort William on the transcontinental line of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and between Capreol and Fort William and between Cochrane and Armstrong on the transcontinental lines of Canadian National Railways be paid annually out of the consolidated revenue fund to an amount not exceeding seven million dollars.


Howard Charles Green: I presume that if we allow the house to go into committee the minister will make a statement.


Lionel Chevrier: Yes.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Dion in the chair.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, at the last
session of parliament when the house was in committee of supply on April 5 considering the Department of Transport estimates I spoke at some length on the report of the royal commission on transportation which was tabled in this house by the Prime Minister on March 15 last. I referred to the chapter of the report containing the recommendations of the commission on the equalization of freight rates, and said that a committee was working on legislation to implement by way of amendments to the Railway Act the recommendations of the commission with regard to equalization. The committee completed its work, which was more difficult than I had at first anticipated, and during that session Bill No. 377, to amend the Railway Act, together with Bill No. 378, to amend the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act, 1933 and Bill No. 379, to amend the Maritime Freight Rates Act were introduced in the house and given first reading.
Owing to the lateness of the session and the pressure of business the bills were not proceeded with beyond first reading. Hon. members have had an opportunity to examine carefully the provisions of those bills which were designed to implement the recommendations of the royal commission with respect to the equalization of freight rates and certain other amendments recommended by the commission. While at this stage I do not wish


to anticipate the bills which are to be introduced later, in order to fully discuss the resolution itself I think it necessary, and I hope the committee will agree, that some general reference at least be made to the bills which I hope to present.
The bill to amend the Railway Act is substantially the same as former Bill No. 377 with a few exceptions. One of these covers the payment, as outlined in the resolution, to the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific railways of the cost of maintaining corresponding amounts of trackage on that part of the two transcontinental railroad systems which serves as a link or bridge between the east and west, that is, between Sudbury and Fort William on the Canadian Pacific and between Capreol and Fort William and between Cochrane and Armstrong on the Canadian National. The payments to the railroad companies are not to exceed in any year $7 million in the aggregate and are to be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund.
Chapter XI of the report of the royal commission deals with the rail link between east and west and makes the specific recommendation that the maintenance of that portion of our transcontinental railway system which serves as a link or bridge between east and west be a charge upon the general revenues of the country. The commission stated that the assistance provided in this way is expected to be particularly effective as a measure of relief in the case of charges on westbound traffic passing over this bridge. The Crowsnest pass rate structure provides to a considerable extent, though not altogether, for the requirements of eastbound traffic. Hon. members who travel over this stretch of sparsely settled territory in northern Ontario will realize the force of this recommendation.
The main purpose of the bill to amend the Railway Act is to give the board of transport commissioners power to effect and maintain the uniformity in rates throughout Canada recommended by the royal commission. In its report the commission stated that Canada had reached a stage in its development when former methods of making regional rates must give way to a uniform rate structure that, so far as may be possible, will treat all citizens, localities, districts and regions alike. This is the objective, but it must be realized that the intricate pattern of rates cannot be changed overnight without dislocation of trade and industry, and that it will take some time and much study to bring about the equalization which the commission had in view.
The report of the commission states that the objective of equalization is something

which can only be attained after considerable study by the board and by the railways. Undoubtedly many serious problems are involved; for example, the effect the proposals may have on railway revenues, on established industries and on trade and market patterns. All these things are matters of the utmost importance. Having regard to the large number of rate changes which will be involved, the commission considered that the problem is one peculiarly for the board to resolve finally after the general freight rate investigation and after all parties who may be affected by the proposals have had an opportunity of being heard.
I should like to comment briefly on the recommendations of the royal commission respecting freight tariffs. The royal commission considered that the standard freight tariff, which is the ceiling tariff, is of little practical value as only a small amount of freight moves under it. The commission thought that since such a small proportion of freight moved under standard mileage rates it was illogical that they should be "key" rates or form the basis for other rates, and it recommended the abolition of the standard mileage tariffs.
At present the Railway Act provides for three classes of freight tariffs, namely, the standard freight tariffs, special freight tariffs, and competitive tariffs. In order to implement the recommendation of the commission and bring the provisions of the act relating to freight tariffs more in line with modern usage, it is proposed to rewrite these provisions and provide for a new division of tariffs into four classes, namely, class rate tariffs, commodity rate tariffs, competitive rate tariffs and special arrangement tariffs. This new division conforms to modern practice and fits into the plan for equalization of freight rates.
The royal commission stated in its report that over the years there has been a gradual improvement in the situation where the general rate level as a whole in the central provinces is below that in the prairie provinces, but the fact remains that the alleged inequalities in rates have been a subject for contention for many years. The bill declares the national freight rates policy, which is that every railway company shall, so far as is reasonably possible, in respect of all freight traffic of the same description and carried on the same kind of cars passing over all lines or routes of the company in Canada, charge the same rates to all persons. This is a directive on equalization given by parliament to the board, and the working out of the national freight rates policy becomes a function of the board. With a view to
Railway Act
implementing the national freight rates policy the board may require any railway company to establish a uniform scale of mileage class rates and a uniform scale of mileage commodity rates throughout Canada, and a revision of any other rates charged by the company.
There are certain exceptions to equality which must necessarily be permitted in certain cases, and the provision for an equalized freight rates structure is made subject to the proviso to subsection 5 of section 325 of the Railway Act which establishes the Crows-nest pass rates, and is also made subject to the Maritime Freight Rates Act. Neither of these special statutory provisions will be affected by the equalization. The other exceptions are joint international rates, rates on export and import traffic, competitive rates, agreed charges, rates on the White pass and Yukon route, and any other case where the board considers an exception should be made from the operation of this section.
I am hopeful that if the proposed equalization provisions are enacted in legislation the result will be a freight rate structure dealing more equitably with all parts of Canada.
Another cause of complaint in the field of freight rates is in respect of competitive transcontinental rates. These rates apply on traffic hauled by the railways across the continent in competition with water transport via the Panama canal or direct to Pacific coast ports. They are competitive rates but unlike most competitive rates they apply generally to or from a large area in eastern Canada and from or to the port area of the Pacific coast. The territory covered by transcontinental rates in the east includes practically the whole of eastern Canada. This is so because ocean steamships with connecting lake, river and truck services can take traffic into or out of all the area served by the great lakes and St. Lawrence river as well as the east coast. On the other side of the continent the transcontinental rates apply only to the Pacific coast fringe, that is, Pacific coast ports and the trucking areas surrounding these ports, which is a comparatively small area.
Complaints were made to the royal commission mainly on behalf of distributors and consumers in the province of Alberta, especially at Calgary and Edmonton, who object to the anomalies existing in certain low transcontinental rates compared to the higher rates to intermediate points on freight traffic of the same description. The commission reported that it seemed reasonable to conclude that when the railways give the trader and consumer at the Pacific coast the benefit of fast railway service at rates which are

Railway Act
little more than ocean rates and thus provide them with alternate services at almost the same price, the consumers in Alberta and other intermediate provinces are entitled to share to an equitable degree in the beneficial conditions thus created by the railways.
The commission recommended that the benefit of any transcontinental rate from the east to the British Columbia coast should be carried back in the rate to intermediate territory on a -basis not more than one-third greater than the transcontinental rate, and that the same principle should apply to eastbound transcontinental rates. Specifically the commission recommended that the Railway Act should be amended to provide that when competitive transcontinental tariffs are published by the railways such tariffs shall contain a provision that the rates to or from intermediate territory shall not exceed the transcontinental rates by more than one-third.
One of the terms of reference to the royal commission directed the commission to review present-day accounting methods and statistical procedure of railways in Canada, and report upon the advisability of adopting, or otherwise, measures conducive to uniformity in such matters, and upon other related problems such as depreciation accounting and segregation of assets, revenues and other incomes, et cetera, as between railway and non-railway items. The commission has made a careful study of this subject of accounting and statistics and has arrived at certain conclusions which are expressed in its report. In brief the commission recommended that the Railway Act be amended so that the board should be empowered and directed to prescribe, as soon as practicable, a uniform classification and system of accounts and reports for rail items for the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways. The commission stressed that uniformity of accounts must be such that comparisons of operations as between the two major railway systems may readily be made. The board would also be empowered and directed to prescribe, as soon as practicable, for all railways subject to its jurisdiction the classes of property for which depreciation may properly be charged in rail accounts, and the rates to be charged with respect to each class. The commission made no attempt to lay down the specific requirements of a uniform accounting procedure.
With respect to statistics the commission recommended an amendment to the act to empower and direct the board to maintain a revised statistical procedure so designed as to provide the requisite data necessary for the performance of its duties.

Effect is given to these recommendations.
I believe there will be no disagreement on the desirability of having uniform regulations governing accounting procedures, depreciation practices and the segregation of rail and non-rail accounts. Uniform regulations should serve to bring out differences between the railways and eliminate much confusion which now exists when comparisons are made.
While at the present stage I cannot anticipate the detailed provisions of the bill, I trust I have made it clear that an attempt has been made to embody in statutory form the principal recommendations of the royal commission regarding amendments to the Railway Act. Other recommendations were made by the commission which are receiving consideration, and I propose at a later stage to advance bills to amend the Maritime Freight Rates Act and the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act. Both these bills deal only with minor amendments recommended by the commission.


Howard Charles Green: The statement which has just been made by the Minister of Transport involves some very technical questions, and I have no doubt most hon. members have had the same difficulty that I have had in realizing what the statement implies. It is my understanding that the government will refer this particular bill, and the other two bills which the minister has just mentioned, to the standing committee of the house on railways, canals and telegraph lines for thorough study, with the idea that the committee may call before it anyone who wishes to give evidence on the bills. Perhaps the minister can tell me whether or not that is the intention. He made no reference to such plan in his statement of a moment ago. If such is the case it will shorten the discussion in the house both at this stage and when we are giving the bill second reading.


Lionel Chevrier: I think I can tell the hon. gentleman now that it is the intention to refer these bills to a select committee on railways and shipping.


Howard Charles Green: What does the minister mean by "a select committee"?


Lionel Chevrier: Perhaps I should have said it will be a select committee which will deal with this legislation.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Not the standing committee.


Lionel Chevrier: Not necessarily, no.


Howard Charles Green: Will that committee be expected to call any witnesses, for example, from the railways, the provinces and various associations such as the farm and business associations?


Lionel Chevrier: That will be a matter, I think, for the chairman of the committee to determine but it is unquestionably-


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Not the chairman.


Lionel Chevrier: For the chairman to determine in consultation with members of the committee. I think there will be a desire to hear representations. Whence they should come is not for me to say, but the committee will have the power to call for persons, the same powers that any other committee possesses.


Howard Charles Green: It would be helpful if the minister would go a little further this evening and give us more information as to the national policy on transportation which is being adopted by the government as a result of the report of the royal commission. For example, he said nothing tonight about whether or not it is intended to give the board of transport commissioners jurisdiction over shipping and aviation as well as over the railways. As members of the house know, a recommendation to that effect was contained in the report of the royal commission, and I believe we are entitled to know whether or not the government intends to carry out that particular recommendation. I know those of us who are interested in shipping are very much concerned as to whether control over shipping is to be taken away from the Canadian maritime commission and given to the board of transport commissioners.
Then there v/as also a recommendation that the board of transport commissioners should be greatly strengthened. I understand the chairman of the board has been compelled to resign recently because of ill health, and I would not want to be taken as criticizing Mr. Justice Archibald in any way, because I think he was a thoroughly competent chairman. But we would like to know whether it is the intention to carry out the recommendation that the board should be strengthened.
There was also a recommendation with regard to the refinancing of the Canadian National Railways. The minister has said nothing this evening as to whether that recommendation is to be carried out. We would like to know whether it is the intention to do so at this session, and in what way.
Then, too, he has said nothing about the general freight rate investigation undertaken about two years ago or more by the board of transport commissioners. At that time there was a great hue and cry about freight rates. The government took off some of the pressure by passing an order in council which authorized the board of transport
Railway Act
commissioners to carry on a general freight rate investigation. The understanding was that such an investigation would bring about an equalization of freight rates as between the different parts of the country. Unfortunately there do not seem to have been very many results flowing from that investigation as yet. I would ask the minister to tell us just what progress has been made by the board, and how that investigation fits into the amendments to the Railway Act now proposed.
Also, while there was no definite recommendation from the royal commission as to the control of transportation on the highways, within the last day or two a judgment has been handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada which seems to give the dominion wide jurisdiction over traffic on the highways, in so far as interprovincial and international trucking is concerned. We would ask the minister to tell us whether it is the intention at this session to take any action with regard to the control of transportation on the highways. I am not speaking either in favour of or against such control at the moment, but we would like to know whether the house will have to deal with legislation on that subject.
No doubt many other hon. members will have questions to place before the minister. I shall not take up more time, further than to say that I am glad to see this provision for what the commission has called a land bridge over the territory of northern Ontario, in which very little freight originates, yet which adds so much to the expense of carrying freight from one part of Canada to the other. I believe there will be general agreement with the subsidization of that haul, though I understand the figure of $7 million does not help a great deal; that it will not make very much difference. However, it does seem to me to be a step in the right direction.
I would ask that the minister deal with these questions when he replies. I shall not go into the matter at greater length now, on the understanding that when the bill comes in it is to be given second reading and then referred to a committee of one type or another; and that subsequently there will be full opportunity for debate on the whole matter.


Lionel Chevrier: If I may be allowed to deal with the questions asked by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra, I would say to him that if he were to read the statement I made following the introduction of my estimates at the last session of parliament, in which I dealt at some length with the recommendations contained in the report of the

Railway Act
royal commission on transportation, he would find there the answers to most of the questions he has asked this evening.
However, to summarize briefly, I said at that time that generally speaking the report could be divided into three parts, namely that dealing with the equalization of freight rates, that dealing with the refinancing of the Canadian National Railways, and that dealing with the co-ordination of transportation facilities. I pointed out that so far as the first part of the report was concerned the government had then decided to implement the recommendations of the royal commission and would introduce legislation, which it did; and the legislation is now before the house. So that is all we are dealing with at this time, legislation having to do with the equalization of freight rates.
The government has not yet considered the other two matters to which my hon. friend has referred; but when it does, it will in due course announce its policy.	I think that
deals with the greater number of questions of the hon. member, with the possible exception of the general freight rates investigation. That is a matter which has come up in the house from time to time. By virtue of order in council P.C. 1487 the government some time ago referred to the board of transport commissioners the whole matter of investigation of the freight rate structure. The board entered upon that investigation and invited the provinces to give evidence. The provinces, however, indicated to the board that they were quite busy with the applications before the board for revenue increases, and asked that the matter be stood over. When the matter came up again in the latter part of this year the provinces, together with the railways, I believe, indicated they would prefer to have the matter stand over until they had some opportunity to consider the legislation about to be discussed in the house.
That is where the matter stands. I might add that the report of the royal commission indicates that, in principle, the recommendations of the commission should be put into effect as guides to the board, and also so that the board by means of the information it will obtain from such investigation will be in a better position to equalize freight rates from one end of the country to the other.
I think I have dealt with everything mentioned by the hon. member, with the exception of the matter of strengthening the board. The government announced recently the appointment of a new chief commissioner who will take office early next month, in the person of Mr. Kearney, a scholar of renown, a great student, who is in the diplomatic

service and who I understand is now or shortly will be on his way back to Canada to take over his new duties.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, I should like to speak to the resolution now before the committee. Along with other members from western Canada I am pleased to see the government following out the recommendation in the report of the royal commission which asked for the payment of up to $7 million as a subsidy to the railroads to help pay the cost of maintenance of the gap between western and eastern Canada. The minister has already quoted from page 254 of the report the following:
It is expected that the assistance herein provided will be particularly effective as a measure of relief in the case of charges on westbound traffic passing over this bridge.
It is one thing for the government to pay the subsidy, which I welcome, and it is another to see that the subsidy is in fact used for maintenance and will result in a decrease in the charges on traffic westward bound. While we welcome the announcement that the subsidy will be paid, it now rests with the minister and the government to see to it that that subsidy does result in lower freight rates on traffic to western Canada.
The next sentence in this part of the report reads:
The Crowsnest pass rates structure provides to a considerable extent, although of course not altogether for the requirements of traffic eastbound.
We on the prairies are, of course, pleased that the commission recommended the maintenance of the Crowsnest pass rates. We realize that they do constitute an advantage for the prairie provinces. They are low rates. I sometimes wonder if the railway companies, particularly the Canadian Pacific, are not a little less anxious to haul western grain at the speed they might otherwise be prepared to haul it because of these low rates. It seems to me that the Canadian Pacific in particular is using its box cars for more lucrative freight at the expense of grain shipments from the prairie provinces. Having gone through the southern part of Saskatchewan, I found others who shared the view that the Canadian Pacific in particular is not hauling adequate amounts of grain, not nearly as much as our government owned railway. I say I am glad we have the Crowsnest pass rates and I hope the railway companies, particularly the Canadian Pacific, will play fair and do the job of hauling prairie grain to the terminals.
I notice the minister also quoted that portion of the royal commission report which reads as follows:
The objective of equalization is something which can only be attained after considerable study by the

board and by the railways . . . Having regard to the large number of rate changes which will be involved, the problem is one peculiarly for the board to resolve finally after the general rate investigation and after all parties who may be affected by the proposals have had an opportunity of being heard.
According to the royal commission report, after the general freight rate investigation has been completed the board of transport commissioners should be in a better position to equalize freight rates throughout Canada. I should remind the house that the general freight rate inquiry was instituted more than three years ago. Through an order in council passed on April 7 the board of transport commissioners was directed to make a general freight rate inquiry which would result in more equal freight rates for all parts of western Canada. While that general freight rate inquiry was under way, or supposedly under way, three separate horizontal increases in freight rates were granted.
We then had the report of the royal commission on transportation under date of February 9, 1951. Some eight months later the government is asking us to implement some of these recommendations. As I see it the main recommendation in the report is that the board of transport commissioners should bring about the equalization of freight rates in all parts of Canada. That being the case, what did the board of transport commissioners do? Did they go ahead with the general freight rate inquiry? Apparently not. The minister says the provinces were not prepared to go ahead. The board of transport commissioners was directed by the government to undertake the general freight rate inquiry, and the order in council said nothing as to the convenience of the provinces in submitting evidence before the board. I say that the board of transport commissioners has too long delayed the completion of that report. The royal commission makes practically the same statement in criticism of the work of the board of transport commissioners.
In an assessment of complaints the commission says at page 271 of the report:
That the board did not itself obtain, or compel the railways to file with it, proper statistics concerning traffic movements so as to enable it to determine which articles could bear greater or lesser increases in rates.
In other words the board of transport commissioners has failed in its job of bringing about an equalization of freight rates in Canada. Tonight the minister said that it is still a job for the board to effect and maintain uniformity of rates throughout Canada. The minister said also that it will take some time and much study to bring about that equalization. The board of transport commissioners has been studying this problem for three and
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a half years. The question I want to ask the minister is, how long do the people of Canada have to wait for the board to complete that study and bring about an actual equalization of freight rates throughout this country? After the recommendation for equalization made in this report dated February 9, instead of the board of transport commissioners doing something to bring about the equalization of freight rates it took action to increase the disparity in rates and place an even heavier burden on the people of the prairies and the maritime provinces than prevailed when the report was tabled in this house.
On July 4 the board of transport commissioners, after having allowed three separate horizontal increases in freight rates in the past three years, allowed a fourth horizontal increase of 12 per cent. This brought the total increase in freight rates from early 1948 to July of this year to 62| per cent. I ask the minister, how can the people of Canada have any faith in the present board of transport commissioners when the first action it takes after the tabling of the royal commission report, recommending that it bring about an equalization, is the allowance of a further 12 per cent horizontal increase? It cannot be contended that in July of this year the railway companies in Canada were suffering unduly financially. As a matter of fact the dominion bureau of statistics report for the first six months of this year shows a gain for all railways of $6,312,646 in operating income; $24,828,573 compared with $18,515,927 at the end of June, 1950. In other words the operating income of the railways of Canada for the first six months of this year was $6 million more than for the comparable period a year ago. With the royal commission having recommended that the board bring about an equalization of freight rates; with the railway companies making large incomes, more than they made a year ago, in the face of all that the board of transport commissioners once again allowed a 12 per cent increase in freight rates. And after July 4, what did it do? Did the board then undertake or resume its general inquiry? Did it endeavour to complete that general inquiry as soon as possible? As far as I know it did little. The board of transport commissioners adjourned this case on July 4, to be resumed again on November 12.
The board apparently took a holiday. It is no holiday or no easy matter for the people of Canada to pay out the $54 million in additional revenue going to the railways as a result of the last 12 per cent horizontal increase in freight rates. It is not an easy thing for the people of western Canada to pay $30 million of this $54 million, as was estimated by the consultant economist of the

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Alberta government would be the cost to western Canada. I therefore say that while we in this group and we from western Canada welcome any steps that may result in the equalization of freight rates, I can see no early promise of such equalization being brought about unless the government directs the board of transport commissioners to complete its inquiry in short order and, in fact, to bring about such equalization.
I do not know what needs to be done in order to make the board of transport commissioners more efficient than it now is. Perhaps it needs additional new blood. Perhaps, as the royal commission suggests, it needs a larger and more competent staff. Something is lacking in the present board. That something should be corrected by the government so that in fact the board of transport commissioners will fulfil the excellent recommendations outlined in the report of the royal commission.


Mr. Low:: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to speak at any length on the resolution at this stage. The minister answered a number of the questions that were in my mind when he replied to the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. I should just like to say at this point, Mr. Chairman, that we believe the report of the royal commission on transportation, which we received during the last session, is a most important document, which we feel will go a long way toward helping to bring about in Canada a real and important national transportation policy; provided, of course, that the government will feel like going as far as we should like to see them go in implementing the recommendations of the commission.
We hope to see the government prepared to bring in legislation and give effect to at least some of the royal commission's recommendations at this session. I say "we"; I am speaking now on behalf of the people of the province of Alberta whom I represent, as well as for my group who are entirely from Alberta. We in that province have for many years been labouring under the heaviest freight rate structure in the whole Dominion of Canada. We have been at the peak of the whole structure, and we have suffered under discriminatory rates. I think that claim has been made a good many times on the floor of this house, and has been denied a number of times by people on the government side. The report of the royal commission is evidence that there has been marked discrimination against the west, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan. We rejoice that at long last some recognition has been given to the claims of the people of my province for redress of these discriminatory rates. We are happy at this time to give support to the

resolution and also to the minister's request that it be sent to a committee, there to be studied in detail. Later I suppose the legislation will come back into the house for complete discussion.
There is only one thing I should like to say at this time in support of what has been said by my hon. friend who has just taken his seat. I have always felt that one of the reasons we have not had redress of these unequal railway rates before has been that the government has never given directives in any specific terms to the board of transport commissioners. I believe the legislation which is forecast in this resolution contains some rather specific directives to the board, and to the railways as well, with respect to competitive rates and rates for intermediate hauls between the large district in the east to that district comprising largely Saskatchewan and Alberta in the west. We are happy to see that at long last the people of Alberta will not be obliged to pay, let us say, over one-third more to haul canned goods from Toronto to Calgary and Edmonton than they are obliged to pay for hauling them from Toronto clear to Vancouver. We think that is quite a substantial step forward because in a number of cases we know of rates that have been 100 to 150 per cent more. That has not been a good thing. We feel that it has been rankly discriminatory. However, while we feel that a step forward has been made in this respect, we are not yet satisfied that the government has done all it can to give direction in specific terms to the board of transport commissioners with respect to this matter of bringing about full equalization across the country, and particularly uniformity in the various areas of Canada.
To leave it to the board is not enough. I have already pointed out on a number of occasions that the board of transport commissioners is not a policy-making commission. That board is more or less a technical commission that should listen to all sides of the case and then make decisions on the basis of their findings. Surely the government must realize that it must take the responsibility for policy. As my hon. friend in the C.C.F. party has already pointed out, what we need now is some specific direction from the government in order to ensure that, in a reasonable time, the board of transport commissioners will have for Canada a schedule of more or less uniform freight rates, so there will not be discrimination as between one area and another. That result can only be accomplished, in my judgment, by having

embodied in some form of legislation or other directive to the board some specific recommendation that they should follow.
My hon. friend who just took his seat says the board of transport commissioners has been studying this matter for three and a half years. As a matter of fact they were given direction nearly twenty-five years ago to do the same thing. They have been plodding along-and I say "plodding" advisedly- for that length of time and have not accomplished anything until now, when they are being given specific direction from the government, which is the policy-making body today. I am hoping that before the committee brings back its report it will give careful consideration to this whole matter of directives in the field of uniform freight rates throughout Canada so as to help the board in its work.
One other thing: on behalf of my supporters in this house and the people of Alberta I do wish to express our appreciation of the steps the government is taking now to implement the royal commission's recommendation for subsidizing the maintenance of the trackage over what has already been described as the great land bridge between the east and the west. In my judgment that will go a long way toward helping to bring about some form of equalization throughout Canada. We are gratified with the steps that are being taken. We are not satisfied that it has been as much as the people could reasonably expect, but just the same we are going to give it our support and the closest possible study.


Mr. Mclvor:: Is there any relief for the discrimination in freight rates against the lake-head? You can ship from Toronto to Winnipeg at the same rate that you can ship to Fort William. We feel that this is unfair to our wholesalers and retailers. I am not a railway expert, but I was wondering whether there was any remedy for that. If there is we shall appreciate it.


Gordon Francis Higgins: I do not know whether I understood the minister correctly when he said that the bill to be based on this resolution was to be basically the same as Bill No. 377. That is correct, is it?


Lionel Chevrier: With certain exceptions. I said in the statement which I made-


Gordon Francis Higgins: Will section 332A still be in it?


Lionel Chevrier: If that is the section dealing with the national freight rates policies, yes.


Gordon Francis Higgins: Equalization?


Lionel Chevrier: Yes.
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Gordon Francis Higgins: That being so-I am not going into this extensively at the present time-I certainly must warn the minister that he is going to face a united front in this matter so far as the Newfoundland members are concerned. I feel he is going to have the same so far as all the maritime members are concerned. I do not think I am speaking out of turn when I say that. Already in the other place we have had a Liberal senator from Newfoundland take a very strong stand on the matter. I do not have any hesitation in saying definitely that we are all going to be as one on this particular item. We have been informed very definitely by the people of Newfoundland principally interested in this matter that the proposed increases will be practically ruinous to local industry.


Lionel Chevrier: I hope the hon. gentleman will allow me to interrupt him. I do not want to break in on his speech, but let me make it quite clear that these bills that are to be introduced propose no increases whatsoever; so that when my hon. friend refers to these increases going into effect, let me assure him right now that these bills do not propose increases. On the other hand, these bills propose equalization.


Gordon Francis Higgins: Equalization will mean an increase. It is going to be equalization all across Canada. That is not going to operate fairly for the maritime areas. That is a fair question, is it not? Does the minister suggest that he is going to lower freight rates for the maritimes?


Lionel Chevrier: I have already explained to the house on many occasions what is meant by equalization. My hon. friend need only read the recommendations in the report, which the government is implementing. I am not saying, nor did the report say, that there were going to be lower freight rates. The provinces asked for equalization, and by these bills the government intends in so far as is possible to implement the recommendations of the royal commission on equalization. That is what these bills are doing.


Gordon Francis Higgins: So that I do not misunderstand-I am not deliberately trying to misunderstand-will the freight rates in the maritimes be increased from their present levels or not?


Lionel Chevrier: The answer to that question is first of all that the royal commission on freight rates made it quite clear that the preference referred to in the Maritime Freight Rates Act would not be affected. My statement a moment ago indicated in addition that this legislation is subject to the Maritime Freight Rates Act.
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Gordon Francis Higgins: The Maritime Freight Rates Act is all very well. If you increase the freight rates to such an extent that the maritime freight rate preference, while it still exists, is going to be offset to such a degree as suggested, what value is it?


Lionel Chevrier: I can only repeat that this legislation does not increase freight rates.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: In reply to my hon. friend a moment ago the minister said that the provinces asked for this equalization. I have the report of the royal commission in my hand. According to a paragraph at page 124 "the maritime provinces said they did not subscribe to or support so-called equalization in freight rates! They also stated that rate equalization is impossible of achievement!" I understand that in the past few days there has been a meeting in the maritimes of those who are advising the governments of the maritime provinces on this question, and that a resolution is to be put before this house opposing the application of equalization to the maritime provinces. Is that not right? Will the minister answer me that this idea of equalization will have the effect of increasing the rates say from the city of Toronto to Newfoundland by 100 per cent? Will he answer that question?


Lionel Chevrier: In the first place, dealing with the statement by my hon. friend that the provinces had not asked for equalization, if he will read the report he will find that the majority of the provinces asked that freight rates be equalized. It may be that the province of Newfoundland, which did not make representations, did not deal with that, but there is no doubt that the report clearly indicates that this was the request of the provinces, namely, the implementation of equalization in so far as that was possible.


Solon Earl Low: That is right.


Lionel Chevrier: With reference to the other matter, the order in council that proposed the investigation, namely, P.C. 1487, the reference to the royal commission as well as this legislation makes an exception in so far as the preference under the Maritime Freight Rates Act is concerned. Until the bills are before the committee for discussion, where representations can be heard, since we are now in the committee stage of the resolution, I think many of these detailed questions may be left for consideration by the committee or at the committee stage of the bills.


William Joseph Browne: On the point that we were just discussing may I ask the minister this. When I read this resolution I see that there is nothing at all in it

about freight rates. The most important part of this resolution is concealed. Why was it not disclosed in the resolution that the minister proposed bringing in equalization under it?


Stanley Howard Knowles: The important part is covered up by two Latin words.


William Joseph Browne: Yes, inter alia.


Lionel Chevrier: We cannot have this both ways. When the bills were discussed at the last session of parliament hon. members from the hon. gentleman's side of the house said: Why is there not some reference to the subsidy for western Canada? How is it that is not in the bill? Is the government going to give us the subsidy for which we asked? And now that we put it in the bill and in the resolution my hon. friend rises in his place and says that we are concealing something. Where is the rest of it? Well, the rest of it will be discussed when the bills are in committee. My hon. friend cannot complain about there being secrecy or that we have hidden something, because he has had the bills since last session. The bills will be the same with one or two exceptions, as I stated earlier in my presentation. There is no intention to hide the slightest thing from parliament. The government wants to place before parliament its understanding of the recommendations made by the royal commission.


William Joseph Browne: I listened to what the minister said, and I wonder if I am right in thinking that the bills that were introduced last session are not going to be continued as separate bills but are to be included in the bill to follow this resolution?


Lionel Chevrier: No, that is wrong. There will be three bills, as was mentioned by the leader of the house in his announcement last night. First there will be a bill to amend the Railway Act which will contain a provision not in the earlier bill, namely, the provision for the payment of $7 million for maintenance.


William Joseph Browne: Is that Bill 6?


Lionel Chevrier: It has not received a
number because it has not been introduced. It was Bill No. 377 of the last session. Then there will be two other bills, one to amend the Canadian National-Canadian Pacific Act and one to amend the Maritime Freight Rates Act.


William Joseph Browne: Are you
going to introduce new bills?


Lionel Chevrier: They will be the same in
effect. The only reason we did not deal with this at the last session was the lack of sufficient time. If we had sat on we

probably would have dealt with the three bills which my hon. friend has in his hand. I think it was the intention then to deal with the subsidy in another fashion, but since we had a new session of parliament we decided to put the whole thing in one package, namely, the $7 million subsidy along with the amendments to the Railway Act, and also the amendments to the other two acts since they concerned statutes already on the statute books.


William Joseph Browne: Will the
bill to amend the Maritime Freight Rates Act arise out of the recommendations in regard to equalization?


Lionel Chevrier: It will arise out of the
recommendations made in the first part of the report of the royal commission on transportation, most of which deals with equalization but a part of which deals with the Maritime Freight Rates Act.


William Joseph Browne: Has the
minister given consideration to the effect the recommendations on equalization are going to have on freight rates to Newfoundland? We are informed that this is going to double the freight rates to and from Newfoundland. If that is so, people are going to suffer considerably. I do not think we ought to be prevented by any niceties of expression in the resolution from taking the strongest opposition at this stage of the proceedings. Would the minister be good enough to assure us that no such increase in rates is likely to occur?


Lionel Chevrier: When we get to the committee stage of the bill, or when we discuss second reading, it will be found that there are clauses which deal with that very thing. On the resolution stage it is customary not to discuss the details of a statute.


William Joseph Browne: But the
minister can tell us whether that is so?


Lionel Chevrier: There are sections in the
bill providing for that. As I said in my statement earlier, I felt that I was precluded from discussing other than the general provisions of the legislation. I still feel that way. When we get into the committee stage, whether it be in the house or before the select committee to be appointed, these matters can then be considered.
I can assure my hon. friend that there is no truth in any statement such as he has made or such as was made by the hon. member for St. John's East to the effect that this legislation will increase freight rates in the maritime provinces by 100 per cent. The legislation which will follow this resolution does not increase or decrease freight 94699-22J
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rates; it simply implements the recommendations of the royal commission as we understand them. What we are doing is sending this legislation to a committee so that anyone who feels aggrieved can come and tell the committee in what form or manner he is aggrieved. My hon. friend can state how he feels freight rates in his part of the country will be affected. Having made that statement, and since we are in the resolution stage, I think the discussion should centre around the resolution.


Mr. Ross (Souris):: Mr. Chairman, I shall be brief. I think this resolution is most important to the people of the prairie provinces. They are in the centre of Canada's railroad system. They are heavy producers of export goods and they are heavy consumers of Canadian manufactured goods. As has been recognized, they buy their goods plus freight and they sell their goods less freight. That represents quite a burden upon these people. Reference has been made by previous speakers to the report of the royal commission and I should like to refer particularly to paragraphs of the recommendations appearing on page 271 of the report, as follows:
5.	That the board has not over the years kept close enough supervision over competitive rates. It will he sufficient in this regard to refer to the conclusions on this subject to be found in the section on competitive rates in this report:
6.	That the board has not in the past twenty-three years taken steps to bring about equalization between rates in the west and in the east; and
7.	That the board has not paid proper attention to the effect of increases in rates on long-haul traffic.
I think it makes it quite plain that the transport board has been falling down on its job. It may be that it has not received proper directions from the government, but certainly it has been most remiss in its duties.
It has been said that the Crowsnest pass rates are not to be altered, but I do believe the Canadian Pacific officials rather resent that. I have an article here reporting a speech made in Brandon, by D. S. Thomson, vice-president of the Canadian Pacific, as late as September 24. Referring to the Crowsnest pass rates he declared these rates to be unprofitable, that railway costs of operation have increased over 400 per cent, and that there was a heavier transportation charge on other commodities apart from grain. I am not going to take the time to place full details on the record, but I have figures here from 1907 to 1945 which indicate that the total profits on the eastern lines amounted to $361,705,798 while the profits on the western lines for the same period amounted to $753,334,134. That

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is twice the profit in, the west for doing half the business done in the east. I think that is a most unfair comparison.
I should like to make some reference to the difficult problem we have in the prairie provinces right now. I am not sure who is to blame, but we are faced with a serious transport problem in connection with our grain. Many of us have been asking questions on the orders of the day. I appreciate that a transport controller has been appointed but there seems to be more difficulty in our part of the country in getting cars from the Canadian Pacific than in getting cars from the Canadian National, though it is bad enough in either case. Certain directives have been put out by the controller that only milling grain is to be moved because of the great shortage of that grade of wheat, and we had a similar statement from the Minister of Trade and Commerce in the last few days. In contradiction to that we have the statement from the leaders of the three prairie pools that they have many elevators plugged with grain, and have quite a quantity of milling grain. There is definitely something wrong with the transportation set-up. I think there should be more direction. The fact that the people on the prairies have to purchase everything plus freight and sell everything less freight is a very important point. It is rather significant that the exact wording of the resolution is copied from the report of the royal commission on transportation at page 253, and that wording is taken word for word out of a brief which was submitted to the commission by the united farmers of Alberta. Therefore, if followed through properly, I think it should be very helpful to those in the prairie provinces. I want to press upon the minister again that I trust he will check on the Department of Transport and try to see that they are more effective and do their job much better than it has been done for many years in the past.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I want to
bring to the attention of the minister a passage from the report of the Turgeon commission which I find hard to understand in the light of what has been said about equalization. There have been some rather strong things said about the transport commissioners, and even the suggestion of threats if they did not do their duty. However, I have been asking myself if I were a transport commissioner how I would interpret the passage I am going to read from page 125. It is under the heading of "Conclusions and recommendations", and reads:
1. It would appear, from the foregoing . . . that the broad general principle of equalization throughout the country is now accepted. It must be noted,

however, that the order in council provides that this equalization shall be subject to such special statutory provisions as affect freight rates.
Paragraph 2, which is the important one. reads:
2. It is difficult to conceive of an unqualified statutory rule for equalization. Exceptions to equality must necessarily be permitted in the following cases and other cases which may come to the attention of the board as the investigation proceeds-
I invite the minister's attention particularly to these cases that are set out, and I invite him to remember also that it says there may be others. Let us look at the list:
(a)	AH international rates;
(b)	Rates on export and import traffic through Canadian ports, where in practice such tolls bear a fixed and long standing relationship with rates on similar freight through ports in the United States;
(c)	Competitive rates under the conditions discussed elsewhere in this report:
(d)	Agreed charges authorized by the board under the Transport Act;
(e)	Rates over the White pass and Yukon route; and
(f)	Rates on railway lines not embraced in the Canadian Pacific or Canadian National systems and which may not be able to operate on rate levels in force elsewhere.
I do not know enough about the railway business to know how broad these exceptions are but they appear to me to be very broad. They look to me as if they would except a very large percentage of the business. As a matter of fact, reading them broadly I wonder if they would not except the vast part of the railway business. Let us look at them again: all international rates, rates on export and import traffic to Canadian ports, competitive rates, and so on. I will not press the point further but I suggest that at this stage we had better find out whether or not we are really talking about equalization. To me it is a funny kind of equalization if all these things are exempted from it. Perhaps the minister will tell me if he thinks I am construing this unfairly.


Lionel Chevrier: No, I do not think the hon. gentleman has construed it unfairly at all. He is reading from the recommendations in the report which I included in my statement a moment ago, and in the statement I made I said exactly the same thing my hon. friend has stated in so far as exceptions are concerned. What proportion these exceptions represent of the total freight rate structure or of total freight rates I am unable to say, but that is a matter we can get as we proceed. I think we are getting away from the whole subject of this discussion. What the government said it would do at the last session, and what it is doing now, is implementing the recommendations of the royal commission on transportation.

It was the provinces that asked the government to set up a commission, and the commission having been set up it made certain recommendations. The government was free to pay no attention to the recommendations at all and throw the report out the window, or to implement the recommendations; and that is what it is doing. It is not implementing them in part. It is implementing them in whole as it feels they should be implemented. In so far as the details are concerned, there may well be cases where inequalities will still continue. That is the reason we are referring the matter to a committee, so that any group, individual or association who feels that the interpretations we have put on the recommendations of the royal commission are not correct may tell us wherein the sections of the bill that will be implemented later on are unfair in their effect on their regions. Therefore in effect what we are doing by this resolution, and later on by the legislation, is to implement the recommendations of the commission.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am not
going to take any more time except to say it seems to me that at this committee stage it is worth considering, if it is a fact-as it seems to me to be the fact-that we are just heading into something which is going to be productive of all kinds of disappointment and misunderstanding by reason of the use of the word "equalization" which, if I understand the section I have just read, means almost nothing.


Mr. Gillis:: I am not going to argue the merits or demerits of freight rates because I do not think the resolution calls for it, but I am suspicious of the resolution itself. The resolution can mean anything. The minister said in the beginning that the whole question of implementing the royal commission's recommendations in railway matters, freight rates and so on, would be referred to a committee. He said it might be a special committee or it might be one of the standing committees. The resolution merely seeks to amend the Railway Act to carry out certain recommendations in the report of the royal commission on transportation, and then there are the words inter alia, which I take to mean "among other things". You can dump a lot of things in there on the basis of those two words, and with the exception of the very mild purpose set out in the rest of the resolution the house does not know now what is going to come before the committee. Of course we take the minister's word for it-very few of us doubt his word-that certain matters are going to be discussed, but what I am thinking about is the committee itself.
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The resolution could be taken as the terms of reference to the committee unless it is given other terms of reference when it is set up. I am also a little suspicious of the minister's statement that the chairman of the committee, in consultation with the members, will determine what the committee's functions will be, unless the chairman is pinned down to certain specific terms of reference by the house. My experience of chairmen of committees is that they call the shot. They say what the terms of reference are unless they are pinned down in the house. The matter is very important. The minister says it is the intention of the government to carry out the recommendations of the royal commission. The maritime provinces did not accept the recommendations of the commission as a solution to their problems. I think it is a matter that should not be hurried, and should be given careful consideration. First I think the minister should make it quite clear who the committee will be. I think it should be the committee on government owned railways and shipping, which examines the reports from year to year of the Canadian National Railways. Members of that committee have gained considerable knowledge of the matters it will be handling.


An hon. Member:: The committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines?


Clarence Gillis: No, on government owned railways and shipping.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What about the C.P.R.?"


Clarence Gillis: We are not particularly anxious about the C.P.R. They can get a free enterprise committee to look after their interests. I am concerned now about what the government is going to do, and I should like to see that committee handle the matter. I would like to see, further, that it goes to the committee with very definite terms of reference, as to what the duties and the latitude of the committee will be.
I am not going to argue the maritime case here, because I do not think this is the place to do it. However, I would like to have a little time before a committee that has some authority from the house to go into the matter thoroughly, as it deserves. Equalization of freight rates? I do not think there is any such animal in Canada. I do not think it is possible in a country like Canada to have equalization of freight rates. But I would suggest to the minister that he tell us exactly what is going before that committee, that he give the committee certain definite terms of reference, and that it should not be nailed down only to the recommendations of the royal commission. So far as I am concerned the case for the maritime provinces;

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contains considerations other than those mentioned in the commission's recommendations.


William Joseph Browne: I should like to repeat the question I asked a moment ago, because it seemed to me that in his reply the minister was trying to evade a very difficult question. I do not blame him for doing so, but I think now is the time he should explain just how far-reaching this legislation is going to be, so far as the maritime provinces and Newfoundland are concerned. When the minister was speaking he said that the provinces, in their majority, asked for this legislation. The minister knows that is not true. He is giving a false impression when he uses such an expression; because here is the royal commission's report. Here is what it says:
British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba urged that equalization be effected, and insisted that fresh legislation it required and that, based on past experience, it will never be achieved except by legislation. They argued that P.C. 1487 leaves the board in the same position as in the case of the order in council of 1925, and as it was in on March 30, 1948, when it delivered the judgment in the 21 per cent case. Saskatchewan stated that although equalization was desirable it may be impossible to achieve.
But there is no mention of Ontario and Quebec, because those two provinces are so happily situated that they do not care what the government does, or what the board of transport commissioners does. But the maritime provinces are in a different position altogether, because they have certain rights they acquired at the time of confederation and which have been confirmed at various stages subsequently. Then the Newfoundland government has its terms of union. If those terms of union are to mean anything more than a scrap of paper the minister must come out and tell us what the effect of the legislation is going to be. I have here an article which appeared in the Daily News of St. John's, Newfoundland, dated September 28, 1951; it indicates how seriously the question is regarded there. It states, under the heading "Freight Structure Imperilled"-
The present Newfoundland freight structure is imperilled and the whole island jeopardized by proposals now under consideration for the equalization of Canadian freight rates.
The word "equalization" sounds fair, equal and equitable. Everybody is going to be treated alike, and it is going to be the same for carrying coal from North Sydney to Montreal as it is from Alberta to Vancouver, or anywhere else. People may be taken in by that. But if anyone here has been down to St. John's, Newfoundland, he will know that when you reach there you are half way to England. We are out in the Atlantic, two thousand miles away, and there is no use charging us the same rate that is charged
[Mr. Gillis.l
from Toronto to Ottawa when we attempt to ship goods from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Ottawa.
There have to be special considerations, and those considerations were supposed to be enshrined in that document known as the terms of union. But does the minister remember last year, after an inquiry had resulted in a change in the freight rate structure in regard to Newfoundland, and new rates were brought in which meant a considerable reduction in the rate on goods going to and from Newfoundland, that I asked him "What about the $4 million that has been taken illegally during the last eighteen months?" and he said, "We cannot do anything about it." Nothing was going to be done about it. This legislation now means that $4 million is going to be taken every year, on the principle of equalization laid down by the royal commission on transportation.
I feel that in such an important matter we should not let this stage go by without a statement from the minister that it is not going to have any detrimental effects upon trade to and from Newfoundland.


Lionel Chevrier: It has never been the practice to deal with legislation at the resolution stage, in a matter brought before the house, and I certainly have no intention of dealing with the legislation at this stage. This is a resolution; and the only reason a resolution is brought forward is the financial requirement of $7 million. My hon. friend knows that just as well as I do; because at the last session of parliament it was not the intention to include it in the bill, but to deal with it in some other manner. Therefore it was not necessary to have a resolution; and the only thing that is before the house at this time is the resolution which has to do with the $7 million subsidy.


William Joseph Browne: Then why did you go into other subjects yourself?


Lionel Chevrier: When we get to the legislation stage, we will deal with the legislation. My hon. friend said a moment ago that I made a statement which was untrue, that the statement I made was wholly inaccurate. I thank my hon. friend for that accusation. That is the second time, he has accused me of making statements in the House of Commons which were inaccurate and false. If he is the kind of member I think he is, then he should not use that kind of language. I am not coming forward in the House of Commons to try to conceal anything or to try to dissuade hon. members from a position. Neither am I trying to say to them something that is wholly untrue, or even false or inaccurate.

My intention and the intention of the government is to put in legislative form the recommendations of the commission.
If my hon. friend had read further, as I indicated he should have a while ago, he would have found, just as the hon. member for Greenwood did a moment ago, that most of the things that have been discussed here this evening are taken care of in the statement I made earlier. If my hon. friend had read page 125 of the report he would have found this, dealing with equalization:
It would appear, from the foregoing and having regard particularly to the terms of order in council No. P.C. 1487, that the broad general principle of equalization throughout the country is now accepted.


William Joseph Browne: By whom?


Lionel Chevrier: That is the royal commission making that statement.


William Joseph Browne: Accepted by whom?


Lionel Chevrier: It is the royal commission making that statement, after having heard the evidence of various groups from one end of the country to the other.
Now, is that statement inaccurate? Is that statement untrue or false? If it is, then my hon. friend certainly is not the kind of member of parliament I think he is or should be. Still he accuses me of making inaccurate statements, statements that are untrue. I say to him that if he will read the report, if he will calm himself, if he will only take the trouble to look at the orders in council and see the trouble to which the government has gone, he will find that the position of the maritime provinces is protected at least three times in the documents which will be discussed from time to time as this matter goes on. Now I ask you, Mr. Chairman, if the time has not arisen to deal with the resolution, and with the resolution alone.


William Joseph Browne: I must thank the minister for the good advice he has given me to remain calm in the discussion of this matter about which I feel so strongly. Yet while I appreciate the good advice I have not heard any statement in refutation of the statement I read from this report. I read from page 124, and the minister read from page 125. The minister says that a broad general principle of equalization throughout the country is now accepted. Such a statement is made on page 125. But on the other page it says:
The maritime provinces said that they did not "subscribe to or support so-called equalization of freight rates" and stated "rate equalization is impossible of achievement."
What are the maritime provinces? They are New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince
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Edward Island and I suppose Newfoundland will be included with them. Will the minister say that these provinces did not and do not oppose equalization? That is the point I am making. The minister made the statement that the provinces in their majority-I think that is the expression he used-favoured equalization. I suggest he was giving a false impression, and I still say he intended to give a false impression.


The Chairman:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman, no member has the right to accuse another member in this house of, by intent or otherwise, making a false statement. I ask that the member abide by the rules and withdraw that statement.


William Joseph Browne: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry for having used that expression. I did not mean to say that.


Some hon. Members:: Withdraw.


William Joseph Browne: I withdraw, certainly, but I still ask the minister what he has to say about the position of the maritime provinces on this question of equalization.


Lionel Chevrier: A moment ago I told the hon. member that I did not intend to be drawn into a discussion of the recommendations of the royal commission. They are there for any member of this house to read, and I can only restate the position that the recommendations as they were made, in my mind and in the mind of the government, represent what the royal commission thought should be done. One of the things they thought should be done was equalization, and that recommendation we intend to implement.


Gordon Francis Higgins: I believe, Mr. Chairman, that my colleague got himself mixed up in this because of the memorandum on freight rate equalization submitted to the minister by Associated Newfoundland Industries Limited. As the minister will recall, that memorandum contained a number of requests with respect to equalization. I do not imagine the minister has a copy with him now, and there are so many things that pass through his hands I am sure he will not mind if I make a brief reference to this particular chapter.
We recommend most earnestly that the equalization section 332A of Bill No. 377 be thrown out. As far as Newfoundland industry is concerned] introduction of the equalization plan would have a' serious general adverse effect. For certain industries, which might be considered marginal because of their sensitivity to freight rate increases, the present proposals would almost certainly be disastrous. On this point, it might be recalled that not all Newfoundland industries were able to survive the effects of confederation with Canada. Those still operating have had to make serious re-adjustments often at high cost, both in the mode of their operation and the type of their products. These

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forms of adjustment have now been exhausted and it is impossible for them to escape the consequences of additional emergencies in the form of alarming freight increases.
Then I should like to quote this last paragraph:
In conclusion, we submit for your earnest consideration the contention that to place Newfoundland and the other maritime regions in an unfair and disadvantageous position in the vital matter of freight rates does violence to the very principles and ideals of the confederate system of government under which we live. It is, we submit, inconsistent with the principles of confederation for some citizens of Canada to be penalized in the matter of rates for vitally important public services merely by virtue of their geographical location and to be deprived of the standard of living to which they justly aspire, by their inability to compete with other provinces which, because of their central location, are progressively and automatically favoured as one upward freight revision follows another.
I do not intend to go further into that particular memorandum. I merely remind the minister of it, and I feel sure that is what was in the back of my colleague's mind when he was referring to the fact that we were not satisfied with equalization.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to ask the minister a question based on the terms of the resolution. Just now I am not concerned with all the other things that are covered by the words "inter alia." I am concerned rather about the part that is before us in the resolution, namely that which refers to the payment of $7 million a year for the maintenance of the tracks of the railway lines in the area described as a bridge between the east and the west. The minister knows that we have had in our possession since the latter part of the last session this bill in the form in which it was presented to us on June 14. The purpose of giving the bill first reading at that time, along with the other two that wrere presented, was to enable us to study it in detail before coming back to deal with it this fall.
It happens that, although we have had the former Bill No. 377 for these several months, the bill to be introduced following this resolution -will include things that were in the former bill, plus this $7 million proposition. We have not had an opportunity of studying the details of any formula which the government may have in mind with respect to paying out that $7 million. I would appreciate it if the minister would give some indication of that now. I hope he will not take the position that we should wait until we see the bill. I suggest, in view of the fact that we have knowledge of the other features in the bill, that he should tell us how it is planned to pay out that $7 million as between the two companies, as among three different lines of railway, and so on.


Lionel Chevrier: In the first place, the method or formula which the commission recommends is to be found at pages 253 and 254 of the report, which chapter is headed "The Rail Link between East and West". I need not read it all, but there is this-


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have read it, but I did not see a formula.


Lionel Chevrier: It reads:
The problem presented is that of maintaining this link so long at least as it does not provide sufficient revenue for its own maintenance. This problem concerns the whole country and not only its western portions, and the responsibility for its solution should be assumed by the nation as, for instance, in the case of the maintenance of our canal system.
Reading from other parts of the report it would appear that the commission has suggested that the annual cost of maintaining the trackage on both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific be paid out of this $7 million subsidy. I think that the commission had in mind, although I have some doubts about it myself, that the proportion of the $7 million which should be divided as between the railways was to be left to the board of transport commissioners.
As I said earlier in the statement, the intention is that an amount equal to the annual cost of maintaining the trackage between Sudbury and Fort William on the transcontinental line of the Canadian Pacific Railway and between Capreol and Fort William and between Cochrane and Armstrong on the transcontinental line of the Canadian National Railways should be certified by the board of transport commissioners. The amount for each railway is a matter which will be left to the board; but there is a section which has been carefully thought out by the committee charged with this legislation in the Department of Transport, and I think it will meet the recommendation that is contained in that chapter.


Stanley Howard Knowles: One problem that occurs to me, and one which I think is important in asking for a formula, is this. Suppose one railway presents a bill for maintenance that is at a higher rate per track mile than that charged by the other company. In that instance how will a decision be made, and what steps will be taken to make sure that these payments to the companies for the maintenance of those tracks will, in the end, result in the advantage to western Canada that was intended by this recommendation?


Lionel Chevrier: The board will have to work out the proportion of the maintenance cost of track as between the two railways. I hesitate to anticipate the interpretation of the section before it is before the house. Having said

what I did say, perhaps the hon. member will wait until the section itself is before the house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I will not press the minister for that if he prefers that we should wait and see the bill. But I would make this suggestion now in view of the importance of this section. If this bill gets first reading tonight, as I imagine it will, I suggest that he do not ask for second reading tonight. Let us have a chance to look at the bill before second reading is given.


Lionel Chevrier: I am in the hands of the committee. I am quite prepared to abide by the suggestion of the hon. member, if that seems to be the wish of the committee.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the resolution carry?


Mr. Bater:: Speaking as a western member I want to commend the minister for bringing in this legislation at this session. This is something we in the west have been awaiting for a long time. I was rather surprised at the remarks made by the hon. member for Assiniboia. Again, in his usual manner, he seemed to me to be seeing only the hole in the doughnut. The people of my constituency are located in a fairly high freight rate zone in western Canada, and the matter of freight rates affects us in a plus and minus way. When we drive to the elevator and unload our wheat, we find that we receive payment minus the freight to Fort William. But if we drive across the street, pick up a piece of furniture or an implement and load it up to take home, we find that we pay the cost of production plus the freight to our point in our own constituency.
In fairness to a former member of this house, I think I should mention at this time that the recommendation dealt with in this resolution was suggested to the transport commission by the former member for Rosthern, Mr. Tucker. I want to pay tribute to him for having done so. We are now getting action on it.
As a result of listening to the discussion tonight may I say I think that had the word "equalization" been put into the resolution, it might have saved a lot of words. As far as the increase in freight rates to any part of the country is concerned, surely that is why this $7 million is mentioned.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the resolution carry?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: No. I want to ask one question of the minister. I know I am not allowed to ask him why the government is not dealing with that part of the commission's report which deals with trucking, but I should like to ask the minister this question. After dealing with this problem
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that is now being dealt with in Bill No. 377, or whatever its new number is, without these other important questions having been settled are we not in danger of finding that we may have to do the thing all over again? In other words, are we not leaving out one important factor with regard to trucking, and going ahead and dealing with the thing in a partial manner? .


Lionel Chevrier: I think I made my position quite clear earlier when I told the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra that we were dealing with the first part of the report only. I disagree with my hon. friend when he suggests that we cannot deal with this matter now and deal with the other question later. I know what my hon. friend wants. My hon. friend wants from me tonight a statement that will go out across the country to the effect that we are going to amend the Railway Act to meet the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada. I will not make that statement. I will not make it, in the first place, because we have not given the slightest consideration to the matter.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am a simple soul, and should not be suspected of having any such intention.


Lionel Chevrier: I will not make that statement, in the second place, because it is a matter of government policy which, as my hon. friend knows, will be announced from time to time. Surely it could not be expected that I would deal with a matter of such great importance in connection with legislation concerning equalization. Again I submit with respect and deference to my hon. friend that I disagree with his suggestion that we cannot deal with this matter now and deal with the other later, should we decide so to do.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the resolution carry?


Mr. Coldwell:: May I just say that I think all hon. members welcome this resolution as foreshadowing legislation that will be of benefit to the country at large. I hold the view strongly-and this is perhaps a personal view-that this whole transport system in Canada must be considered as a whole. While we welcome this particular legislation in an attempt to bring about some equalization, we must bear in mind of course-as the minister has already said and as the recommendations of the report indicate, as read by the hon. member for Greenwood-that there must be some exceptions to equalization; for instance, maritime freight rates, Crowsnest rates and so on. They must be separated from or left out of this legislation altogether. But in my opinion this legislation is important, particularly for those of us who represent

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constituencies in the distant parts of Canada. What has been said tonight with regard to the effect of the discriminatory freight rates on this country is absolutely correct.
What I was going to say to my hon. friend the minister is that, having read much of the evidence that was given before this commission, I am convinced that what we shall have to do is give the board of transport commissioners more expert help in dealing with these matters. I believe one of the causes of the failures of the board in the past has been that the staff has been quite inadequate to deal with the various problems that have been placed before it. No doubt this legislation will be discussed thoroughly in the committee. When it comes back to the house and is passed I hope the government will see to it that the board of transport commissioners is strengthened not so much perhaps as to the personnel of the board itself but as to the personnel of the officials, experts, accountants and so on who have to deal with this intricate problem of freight rates which I believe the railways themselves do not properly understand. That this is the situation is indicated when you find-as most of us have from time to time- that one person will figure the freight rate on a particular article or group of articles to be quite a different amount from what someone else will figure it. That is something which has caused some of the big companies in this country-and I could name them; some of the big mail order houses- to keep a staff reviewing the rates that are being charged for freight on the goods going out of their stores, warehouses and so on. It pays them to keep such a staff to recover the overcharges that are made in connection with freight and express. Therefore I say, dealing with this intricate problem, that one of the main things in connection with it is to see to it that we have a board of transport commissioners that is properly equipped with a competent and large enough staff to look into these matters. As far as
equalization is concerned, I realize that there must be certain exceptions, but we want to see the discrimination that has been in effect for years removed, and in that way equalization is the term which we use regarding the freight rates.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Now that the minister understands my question was not a subtle question but a very simple one, I am going to repeat it for him because I am sure he can answer it. I realize we cannot discuss the question dealing with trucking, but I ask him does he not think that it will be very difficult for the board to fix the rates they are going to have to fix while this other important matter is left undone? That is my only question.


Lionel Chevrier: No, I do not think so, because we are dealing with the Railway Act, and the other matter deals with another act altogether.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in.
Mr. Chevrier thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 12, to amend the Railway Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Fournier (Hull):: I move the adjournment of the house. There are only five minutes left; therefore I do not think we will have time to take up any other matters. Tomorrow we will revert to the debate on the address. If the debate is concluded we will take up Bills Nos. 8 and 9 on today's order paper, to amend the North Fraser Harbour Commissioners Act and respecting the Toronto harbour commissioners. We may take up the Toronto bill before the North Fraser harbour bill.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the house adjourned at 9.55 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, October 24, 1951